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vet  Ival  i^^%  ite 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  RELIGION 


bt  emil  carl  wilm. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF   FRIEDRICH   SCHILLER. 

THE  PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION. 

THE  CULTURE   OF   RELIGION. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  HENRI   BERGSON, 

TRANSLATION  OF  KLEMM,  GESCHICHTE  DER  PSYCHOLOGIE. 

( In  preparation.) 


THE   PROBLEM 
OF   RELIGION 


By 
EMIL  CARL  WILM,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Wells  College.     Formerly  Fellow 

in  Philosophy,  Cornell  University,  and  Assistant 

in  Philosophy,  Harvard  University. 


Play  no  tricks  upon  thy  soul,  O  man  ! 
Let  fact  be  fact,  and  life  the  thing  it  can. 
—  Clough. 


THE    PILGRIM     PRESS 

BOSTON  NEW   YORK  CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1912 
By  LUTHER  H.  GARY 


THE  RUMFORD  PRESS 
CONCORD  ■  N  •  H  ■  U  •  S  •  A. 


p 


Co 
John  R.  Allen,  D.D. 

a  southern  gentleman  who  combines 

freedom  of  thought  with 

essential  justice 

OF   LIFE 

MY   FIRST   TEACHER  OF   PHILOSOPHY 

THIS  BOOK 

IS   AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED 


1G8'?224 


PREFACE 

The  little  book  presented  here  is  not  a 
treatise  on  theological  apologetics  in  an  old 
sense  of  the  term.  I  have  rather  been  inter- 
ested to  trace  out,  in  a  way  which  would  be 
fairly  consonant  with  our  present  knowledge, 
and  satisfactory  to  my  own  scientific  con- 
science, the  natural  implications  of  our  com- 
mon and  our  scientific  experience  with  a  view 
to  seeing  what  justification  could  be  given  for  a 
religious  conception  of  the  world,  independ- 
ently of  revelation,  or  of  any  other  cabalistic 
sources  of  religious  truth.  My  way  has  not 
been  an  entirely  new  way.  If  it  were,  it  would 
rightly  be  under  suspicion.  The  philosophical 
reader  will  likely  miss  many  of  the  refinements 
of  modern  philosophical  speculation,  and 
any  distinct  recognition  of  the  very  energetic 
reaction  to  idealism,  of  which  (I  trust  he 
will  believe)  I  am  not  entirely  innocent.  To 
the  essential  truth  in  pragmatism,  that  new 
version  of  a  very  ancient  way  of  thinking,  I 
have  indeed  tried  to  do  justice.  What  I 
have  endeavored  to  do  is  to  present,  in  as 

[vii] 


PREFACE 


simple  a  manner  as  the  subject  would  bear, 
the  idealistic  tradition  in  its  best  known  his- 
torical forms  as  bequeathed  to  us  by  Berkeley 
and  Kant.  I  have  tried,  in  the  second  place, 
to  incorporate  with  this  the  essential  features 
of  modern  voluntaristic  philosophy  with  its 
rightful  emphasis  upon  the  purposive  and 
active  aspects  of  our  experience,  and  the 
closely  related  tendencies  in  the  philosophy 
of  religion,  which  have  stressed  the  belief 
in  the  conservation  of  values  as  the  essential 
characteristic  of  religion.  All  this  seemed 
to  me  well  worth  doing,  and  in  a  manner  as 
free  from  the  subtler  technicalities  of  scholar- 
ship as  possible.  I  have,  I  hope,  stated  the 
whole  argument  in  a  direct  and  fresh  way, 
and  have  given  the  problem  of  religion  a 
somewhat  novel,  and,  I  trust,  a  natural  and 
true  perspective.  That  a  phenomenon  of 
such  enormous  social  and  historical  signifi- 
cance as  religion  has  been  would  be  capable 
of  some  sort  of  justification  I  have  all  the 
while  been  confident.  How  far  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  keeping  my  mind  free  from  the 
disturbing  influence  of  scientific  pride,  on  the 
one    hand,    and    of    religious   prejudice,    on 

[viii] 


PREFACE 


the  other,  and  have  assessed  rehgion  at  its  true 
status  and  worth,  the  reader  must  judge. 

This  book  is  the  property  of  Harvard 
University,  and  I  wish  here  to  express  my 
thanks  to  President  Lowell,  and  to  Professor 
Bliss  Perry,  chairman  of  the  committee  on 
the  administration  of  the  Bowdoin  Prize,  for 
permission  to  print  it  in  the  present  form.  My 
best  thanks  are  also  due  to  my  former  student, 
Miss  Helen  Ingham,  for  reading  the  proof  of 
the  book,  and  to  my  wife,  Grace  Gridley  Wilm, 
for  the  same  service,  and  for  removing  a  num- 
ber of  foreign  idioms  which  would  otherwise 
have  marred  my  pages. 

E.  C.  Wilm. 

Cambridge,  Mass., 
June  15,  1912. 


ix] 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    Introductory:  The  Present  Religious  Situation     .   1-21 

The  time  one  of  religious  unrest,  p.  3.  Causes  for  this, 
p.  5.  Excessive  speciahzation  of  science,  p.  5.  Mechanis- 
tic philosophy,  p.  9.  Change  of  attitude  towards  bibhcal 
tradition,  p.  12.  Waning  of  church  influence,  p.  14.  And 
of  the  influence  of  the  home,  p.  16.  Is  religion  obsolete? 
p.  17. 

II    The   Nature    of   Religion    and   Its   Relation    to 

Philosophy 23-53 

What  is  religion?  p.  25.  The  psychology  and  the  phil- 
osophy of  religion,  p.  33.  The  sources  of  religious  truth, 
p.  35.  The  theory  of  intuition,  p.  36.  And  of  revelation, 
p.  42.  Problems  of  the  philosophy  of  religion,  p.  48.  Is 
reality  matter  or  spirit?  p.  49.  Is  the  course  of  the  uni- 
verse mechanical  or  telic?  p.  49.  The  problem  of  evil, 
p.  50.     ReUgion  and  morality,  p.  51. 

Ill    Materialism  and  Idealism 55-76 

Mind  as  matter,  p.  57.  Mind  as  the  effect  of  matter,  p. 
59.  Criticism  of  materialism,  p.  61.  The  nature  of  matter ; 
primary  and  secondary  properties,  p.  62.  The  relational 
features  of  experience,  p.  66.  Further  remarks,  p.  08. 
Extra-experiential  objects,  p.  71.  Finite  experience 
and  the  absolute  experience;  the  world  the  object  of  God's 
thought,  p.  72.     Is  God  merely  contemplative?  p.  75. 

IV    The  Scientific  View  of  Nature:  Mechanism  and 

Teleology       77-109 

Inadequacy  of  the  preceding  discussion:  the  purposive  as- 
pects of  experience,  p.  79.  The  world  as  will,  p.  83.  Pop- 
ular meanings  of  causation,  p.  84.  The  problem  of  causal 
efficiency,  p.  86.  Source  of  the  idea  of  power,  p.  87.  In- 
adequacy of  mechanical  explanation;  explanation  by  end  or 
purpose,  p.  91.  Law  and  purpose  not  incompatible  but 
complementary  conceptions,  p.  95.  Some  results  of  the 
unwarranted  opposition  of  law  and  purpose,  p.  97.  And 
of  nature  and  God,  p.  98.  Evolution  both  a  causal  and  a 
purposive  process,  p.  99.  The  will  to  struggle,  p.  102. 
Summary,  p.  104. 

[xil 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

V    The  Value  OF  Life:  Optimism  and  Pessimism    .      .  111-156 

The  central  problem  of  religion:  Is  life  good  on  the 
whole?  p.  113.  The  terms  of  the  problem;  deBnition  of 
good,  p.  115.  Has  life  ethical  worth?  Difficulties  of  the 
question,  p.  119.  The  contribution  of  biology;  pleasure 
feeling  and  welfare,  p.  124.  The  effects  of  heredity  and 
of  sexual  selection,  p.  127.  Social  heredity,  p.  132.  The 
causes  of  misery  largely  remediable,  p.  134.  Activity  and 
happiness,  p.  136.  The"  contribution  of  insight,  p.  141. 
And  of  love,  p.  146.     Is  there  moral  progress?  p.  148. 

VI    The  Shadow  of  Death 157-184 

If  life  is  good,  death  must  be  an  evil,  p.  159.  The  mere 
assurance  of  a  future  life  is  unimportant,  p.  160.  The  ar- 
guments against  immortality  are  not  conclusive,  p.  161. 
But  neither  can  we  prove  immortality,  p.  166.  The  argu- 
ment from  desire,  p.  167.  From  the  injustice  of  life,  p.  168. 
Ignorance  concerning  the  future  not  an  evil,  p.  171.  If  im- 
mortality is  not  true,  life  does  not  lose  its  value,  p.  172. 
And  the  effects  of  hfe  are  not  lost,  p.  174.  But  prema- 
ture death  is  sad,  p.  177.  The  conditions  of  the  possible 
survival  of  mind,  p.  179.  And  of  the  individual  mind,  p.  181. 

VII    Religion  and  Morality 185-214 

The  nature  of  the  issue,  p.  187.  Religion  implies  ethical 
attitudes,  p.  193.  The  historical  connection  between  reli- 
gion and  morality,  p.  193.  The  motives  of  action:  "sanc- 
tions" of  morality,  p.  195.  Religion  a  primarily  conserva- 
tive influence,  p.  198.  Reasons  for  this,  p.  201.  Religion 
renders  action  more  vigorous  through  the  release  of  unused 
energies,  p.  204.  Hence  its  heroisms,  p.  207.  Audits  art, 
p.  209.  Mystery  and  moral  power,  p.  210.  The  stimulus 
of  prestige,  p.  211.  The  suggestive  force  of  personaUty, 
p.  212. 

VIII    The  Religion  of  the  Future 215-232 

Summary  of  the  foregoing,  p.  217.  The  religion  of  the 
future  will  be  theistic,  p.  223.  And  humanistic,  p.  226. 
It  Will  be  progressive,  p.  227.  It  will  express  itself  through 
institutions,  p.  228.  It  will  be  ethical,  p.  229.  The  ro- 
mance of  religion,  p.  229. 

Indices 235 


xii] 


I 

INTRODUCTORY:    THE   PRESENT 
RELIGIOUS  SITUATION 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  RELIGION 


INTRODUCTORY:      THE    PRESENT 
RELIGIOUS     SITUATION 


The  time 


It  is  a  matter  of  frequent  remark 
Miigbus  that  modern  life  is  becoming  sec- 
"°'^^**  ularized,  or,  put  somewhat  more 
brusquely,  that  the  religious  view  of  the  world 
is  becoming  obsolete,  and  the  religious  con- 
sciousness correspondingly  enfeebled.  It  is 
easy  to  exaggerate  this.  The  opinion  that 
religion  would  be  lost  is  one  which  recurs 
with  surprising  frequency  in  history.  But 
religion  survives,  and  is  today  one  of  the 
wtent  and  vital  forces  in  civilization.  As 
iabatier  eloquently  says:  "The  cults  it  has 
spoused  and  abandoned  have  deceived  it  in 
vain ;  in  vain  has  the  criticism  of  savants  and 
philosophers  shattered  its  dogmas  and  mythol- 
ogies; in  vain  has  religion  left  trails  of  blood 
and  fire  throughout  the  annals  of  humanity; 
it  has  survived  all  change,  all  revolution,  all 
stages  of  culture   and   progress.     Cut   down 

[3] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

a  thousand  times,  the  ancient  stem  has  always 
sent  new  branches  forth. "^  The  fact  is  that 
the  religious  instinct  manifests  itself  in  many- 
forms,  and  the  religious  life  embodies  itself 
in  many  guises.  And  to  one  who  has  been 
accustomed  to  center  his  attention  upon  the 
temporary  forms  in  which  religion  is  cast, 
and  through  which  it  must  necessarily  express 
itself,  any  modification  of  these  temporary 
and  outward  forms  will  seem  to  be  a  serious 
modification  of  religion  itself.  For  many 
persons  any  reorganization  or  readjustment 
of  theological  doctrines,  for  example,  means 
an  abandonment  of  religion.  But  to  those 
who  look  upon  theological  progress  as  a 
necessary  phase  of  general  scientific  and  social 
progress,  such  theological  reconstruction  will 
not  be  understood  to  mean  an  abandonment 
of  the  religious  point  of  view,  or  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  upon  which  the  religious 
life  rests.  On  the  contrary,  the  sensitiveness 
which  religion  shows  to  changes  which  go  on  in 
cognate  departments,  and  its  power  to  adjust 
itself  to  the  constantly  enlarging  world  of 
scientific  standards  and  ideas,  may  signify  an 

»  Outlines  of  a  Philosophy  of  ReUgion,  pp.  3-4. 
[4] 


INTRODUCTORY 


inherent  vitality  and  strength  which  are 
entirely  reassuring. 

Causes  Nevertheless,    when    all    is    said, 

for  this.  there  probably  remains  some  truth 
in  the  belief  that  religion  has  suffered  some 
depression  in  modern  life.  The  causes  of  this 
are  so  varied,  and  often  operate  so  silently 
that  they  are  extremely  difficult  to  isolate  and 
describe.  There  are,  however,  five  broad 
tendencies  distinguishable  whose  existence 
is  undeniable,  and  whose  bearing  upon  reli- 
gious life  is  fairly  obvious.  Three  of  these 
are  scientific  in  character,  and  affect  more 
directly  the  educated  classes;  two  are  more 
general,  and  affect  profoundly  the  great  body 
of  our  population,  especially  in  towns  and 
cities.  I  shall  enumerate  them  in  the  order 
mentioned. 

Excessive  Amoug  the  more  strictly  academic 

tk.n  of'^*"  influences  tending  to  disorganize  and 
science.  disturb  rcfiglous  life,  one  is  doubtless 
the  excessive  specialization  which  has  been 
such  a  striking  feature  of  modern  science. 
The  scientific,  literary  and  historical  labors 
of  the  last  half -century  have  been  immeasur- 
ably fruitful,  presenting  us  with  a  body  of 

[51 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   RELIGION 

facts  and  generalizations  intricate  almost 
beyond  conception,  and  altogether  imposing  in 
its  proportions.  Time  was  when  a  scholar  of 
the  power  of  an  Aristotle  or  a  Leibniz  could 
compass  the  entire  range  of  human  knowl- 
edge. But  no  one  today,  no  matter  what 
may  be  his  native  endowment  or  his  industry, 
can  hope  to  do  more  than  acquaint  himself 
with  the  method  of  scientific  study,  to  com- 
mand in  detail  a  very  limited  field  of  investi- 
gation, and  perhaps,  if  time  and  strength 
permit,  to  familiarize  himself  superficially 
with  the  general  results  of  the  various  lines 
of  study  other  than  his  own,  in  order  to 
answer  for  himself,  if  he  cares  to,  some  of  the 
more  fundamental  questions  affecting  life 
and  practice.  Year  by  year,  however,  the 
task  of  interpretation  becomes  more  difficult, 
and  the  intellectual  problem  of  bringing  under 
a  single  world-view,  which  shall  have  some 
degree  of  adequacy  and  systematic  complete- 
ness, the  vast  materials  of  science  is  even 
today  an  almost  hopeless  one. 

The  result  of  this  astounding  development 
after  centuries  of  comparative  intellectual 
quiescence  has  been  what  might  well  have 

[61 


INTRODUCTORY 


been  anticipated.  The  experience  of  exhilara- 
tion which  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  great 
lines  of  scientific  advance  has  been  succeeded 
by  one  of  perplexity  and  baffled  impotence 
in  the  face  of  certain  problems  of  ethical  and 
religious  import,  particularly,  for  which  tra- 
ditional solutions  are  no  longer  available. 
Many  of  the  old  landmarks  of  belief  have 
been  completely  swept  away,  and  others  are 
about  to  yield  under  the  pressure  and  grind  of 
the  unceasing  flood  of  scientific  and  historical 
criticism  beating  against  them.  Many  views 
formerly  believed  to  involve  grave  moral  and 
practical  issues  have  all  but  disappeared 
from  among  us.  Some  of  these  have  been 
abandoned  only  after  a  prolonged  and  bitter 
struggle;  others  have  slipped  out  of  our 
thought  unawares,  owing  either  to  a  process 
of  gradual  corrosion,  or  else  to  the  rise  of 
other  and  more  engrossing  interests.  It  is 
quite  natural  also,  where  so  much  is  found 
untenable,  that  a  tendency  should  grow  up  to 
suspect  everything  which  bears  upon  it  the 
marks  of  age  and  tradition.  The  tendency 
to  wholesale  abandonment  has,  in  the  absence 
of  clear  standards  of  truth  and  value,  extended 

[71 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

to,  and  throughly  involved,  not  only  theo- 
retical behefs,  but,  what  is  more  serious,  cus- 
toms, moral  standards,  ideals  and  institutions 
as  well.  As  the  social  philosophers  of  a 
former  time  concluded  that,  since  society  and 
the  state  were  not  divine  institutions,  but  a 
mere  artifice  of  human  invention, — the  results 
of  compacts  made  by  men  for  their  mutual 
benefit, — these  institutions  could  again  be 
dissolved  by  men  when  the  benefits  contem- 
plated no  longer  accrued,  so  many  in  our 
day  seem  to  have  lapsed  into  the  crude  indi- 
vidualism of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
have  declared  that,  since  the  moral  code,  or 
the  sacred  writings,  or  the  church,  or  the 
family  are  not  divine  institutions,  in  an  old 
and  outworn  sense  of  the  term,  they  are 
therefore  of  no  further  significance  or  value. 
In  spite  of  the  great  progress  of  political  and 
social  philosophy,  and  our  theoretical  insight 
into  the  fact  that  each  of  us,  though  a  unit, 
is  still  an  organic  part  of  a  larger  whole,  and 
can  deserve  and  enjoy  hberty  only  under 
law,  we  are  still  widely  disposed  to  emphasize 
our  rights  and  to  forget  our  duties,  and,  in 
general,  to  underestimate  the  significance  of 

[8] 


INTRODUCTORY 


the  institutional  life  in  virtue  of  which  we 
have  become  what  we  are.  The  sabbath, 
with  some,  interferes  with  the  right  to  work, 
with  others,  with  the  right  to  play.  The  legal 
regulation  of  the  liquor  traffic  interferes  with 
the  right — well,  to  starve  one's  family,  or  it 
even  checks  the  free  development  of  social 
and  aesthetic  sentiments.^  Marriage  cuts 
across  the  lines  of  natural  affinity,  and  is  in- 
compatible with  a  many-sided  development; 
and  law  and  order  in  general  are  felt  to  be 
inconvenient  restrictions  of  our  natural  rights 
and  opportunities  from  which  we  are  often 
justified  in  freeing  ourselves. ^ 

Mechanistic  ^idc     by     sidc     with     this     UCgativC 

phuosophy.  result  of  the  expansion  of  modern 
knowledge  there  appeared  another  phenome- 
non which,  though  constructive  in  outward 
appearance  and  intention,  also  exercised  a  neg- 
ative and  depressing  effect  upon  the  reli- 
gious consciousness.    The  philosophical  instinct 

1  Cf.  Munsterberg,  Psychology  and  Temperance,  American  Traits, 
IV. 

2  For  a  further  discussion  of  this  point,  and  for  a  discussion  of  the 
duty  of  education  in  teaching  the  social  solidarity  of  the  race,  and 
its  indebtedness  to  the  past,  see  Butler,  The  Meaning  of  Education, 
Essay  II;  Adier,  The  Ethical  EflBciency  of  Education,  in  Sadler, 
Moral  Instruction  and  Training  in  Schools,  p.  97  ff, 

[91 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

is  strong,  and  it  asserted  itself  in  an  heroic 
attempt  to  bring  into  some  kind  of  organic 
unity  the  unwieldy  materials  accumulated 
by  the  extraordinary  activities  of  science. 
The  result  was  the  somewhat  impromptu 
organization  of  a  system  of  philosophy  out 
of  what  purported  to  be  the  established  re- 
sults of  modern,  especially  physical,  investi- 
gations, and  by  the  aid  of  categories  whose 
employment  in  the  special  sciences  had  yielded 
such  wealthy  results.  There  arose,  therefore, 
through  the  substitution  of  mechanical  or 
quasi-mechanical  categories,  such  as  natural 
law,  uniform  causation,  matter  and  energy, 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  through  struggle, 
and  the  like,  for  the  earlier  teleological  cate- 
gories, such  as  special  creation,  purposive 
adaptation,  etc.,  a  system  of  mechanistic  and 
materialistic  philosophy  whose  leading  fea- 
tures are  today  so  familiar  in  scientific  and 
even  in  popular  circles.  Under  this  mechan- 
istic and  physical  view  of  the  world,  matter, 
not  spirit,  is  the  sole  reality,  and  man,  and  the 
various  spiritual  interests  associated  with  his 
life,  appear  rather  as  an  incident,  important 
indeed    for    man,    but    entirely    unimportant 

[101 


INTRODUCTORY 


otherwise,  in  the  process  of  universal  evolu- 
tion. Religion  can  of  course  not  prosper  in 
an  iron-shod  universe  of  blind  law,  a  universe 
indifferent  to  ethical  distinctions  and  to  the 
ideals  of  man.  Man  and  his  life,  on  this  view, 
can  at  best  claim  but  an  episodic  and  ephem- 
eral existence  in  a  world  of  mass,  motion  and 
unbending  law.  The  ideals  and  aspirations 
which  form  so  important  a  part  of  moral 
and  religious  life  become  in  such  a  world 
meaningless  and  futile. 

I  do  not  mj^self  share  this  view  of  the  place 
of  life  and  mind  in  the  universe,  and  there  is 
abundant  evidence,  1  believe,  that  the  natural- 
istic type  of  philosophy  is  fast  being  rendered 
obsolete  by  the  progress  of  thought,  and  by 
the  process  of  self-criticism  on  the  part  of  the 
very  sciences,  physics  and  biology,  which  are 
mainly  responsible  for  the  naturalistic  view, 
and  the  resulting  physical  and  secular  view  of 
life.  In  so  far,  therefore,  as  the  present 
religious  unrest  is  due  to  the  presuppositions 
and  theories  of  materialism  and  mechanism, 
the  religious  situation  may  fairly  be  expected 
to  improve  with  the  dissolution  of  the  world- 
view  upon  which  it  depends,  and  the  re-estab- 

flll 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

lishment  of  a  philosophy  more  in  harmony 

with  the  best  modern  knowledge.^ 

Change  of  I  think  wc  shall  not  go  far  wrong 

attitude 

towards        if   we   mention   as   the   third   great 

biblical 

tradition.  cRUse  of  the  decadence  of  rehgious 
hfe,  in  so  far  as  such  decadence  exists,  the 
collapse  of  authoritative  theology  which  has 
been  such  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  higher 
intellectual  life  in  Europe  and  America  during 
the  last  half -century.  Owing  partly  to  the 
somewhat  hasty  interpretations  of  the  results 
of  scientific  investigations  to  which  allusion 
has  just  been  made,  and  partly  to  the  very 
energetic  and  fruitful  literary,  historical  and 
philological  studies,  the  belief  in  any  form  of 
revealed  religion  has  in  many  quarters  been 
greatly  enfeebled,  and  often  entirely  destroyed. 
With  the  weakening  of  the  revealed  basis  of 
religious  beliefs,  many  theological  traditions 
not  directly  depending  upon  biblical  sources 
have  likewise  largely  lost  their  power  of  ap- 

iThat  idealism  in  some  form  bids  fair  to  dominate  philosophy  for 
some  time  to  come  seems  probable  from  the  very  large  and  valuable 
literature  written  within  the  last  decade  or  two  by  writers  of  first- 
rate  scientific  equipment  and  of  genuine  creative  power,  such  as  James 
Ward,  Royce,  James,  Bergson,  Edward  Caird,  John  Caird,  McTaggart, 
A.  E.  Taylor,  Paulsen,  Eucken,  and  a  host  of  othera. 

[121 


INTRODUCTORY 


peal,  and  have,  along  with  the  biblical  doc- 
trines with  which  they  were  associated,  been 
discarded  as  either  obsolescent  or  entirely 
discredited.  Now  it  is  my  conviction  (a  con- 
viction which  I  shall  seek  later  to  justify) 
that  religion  cannot  exist  without  a  nucleus  of 
theological  belief,  consciously  or  unconsciously 
held.  When  therefore  one  of  the  leading 
sources  of  such  belief  is  questioned  or  even 
discredited,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  religious 
life  which  has  grown  up  around  this  belief, 
and  clings  to  it  as  a  vine  to  its  support,  should 
be  more  or  less  disturbed.  Professor  McTag- 
gart  has  stated  the  case  admirably:  "The  only 
roads  by  which  religious  dogma  has  been 
reached  in  the  past  are  revelation  and  meta- 
physics, and  every  year  fewer  people  appear 
willing  to  accept  any  system  of  asserted 
revelation  as  valid  without  support  from 
metaphysics.  Now  every  one  who  studies 
metaphysics  does  not  arrive  at  conclusions  on 
which  religion  can  be  based.  And,  even  if 
he  did,  the  study  of  metaphysics  is  only 
open  to  those  who  have  a  certain  natural  or 
acquired  fitness  for  it.  The  number  of  people 
who  will  be  left  between  the  rapidly  diminish- 

[131 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 

ing  help  of  revelation  and  the  possibly  increas- 
ing help  of  metaphysics   seems  likely  to  be 

unpleasantly  large." ^ 

Another  cause  of  religious  depres- 

Waning    of  ,  , 

church  in-     siou  is  doubtlcss  thc  increasing  com- 

fluence. 

plexity  of  modern  life,  and  the 
consequent  restriction  of  church  influence  due 
thereto.  A  generation  ago  the  church  was  the 
center  of  the  educational,  social  and  religious 
life  of  the  community.  Today  many  of  the 
functions  formerly  discharged  by  the  church 
have  been  taken  over  by  the  state  and  by  pri- 
vate enterprises. 2  Among  the  more  impor- 
tant of  these  are  education  and  social  relief. 
The  state  is  everywhere  assuming  an  increas- 
ingly large  share  in  educational  responsibility; 
systematic  charity  and  philanthropy,  formerly, 
like  education,  the  exclusive  care  of  the  church, 
have  also  gained  wide  legislative  and  public 
support.  So  thoroughly  has  the  popular  con- 
science' been  awakened  to  its  ethical  responsi- 
bility that  the  state,  through  the  agencj^  of  its 
schools,  is  even  undertaking  the  moral  and 
religious  training  of  the  young,  thus  assuming 

>  J.  E.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  p.  36. 
s  Cf.  Sisson,  The  State  Absorbing  the  Function  of  the  Chm-ch, 
International  Journal  of  Ethics,  April  1907,  pp.  336  ff. 

[14] 


INTRODUCTORY 


at  least  a  part  of  the  responsibility  for  what 
would  seem  to  be  one  of  the  most  distinctive 
functions  of  the  religious  organization.  ^ 

The  result  is,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  that 
the  church,  as  an  institution,  occupies,  and 
seems  destined  to  occupy,  a  relatively  less 
strategic  and  conspicuous  position  in  the  com- 
munity life  than  it  formerly  did.  The  pulpit, 
at  one  time  the  leading  intellectual  and 
spiritual  force  in  the  community,  is  obliged  to 
compete  today  with  the  lecture  platform,  the 
school  and  the  public  press;  and  the  oppor- 
tunity for  social  intercourse  which  the  church, 
especially  in  villages  and  rural  communities, 
at  one  time  almost  exclusively  afforded  is 
today  offered  by  a  bewildering  variety  of 
competing  agencies.  The  minister  no  longer 
speaks  with  the  authority  which  his  profession 
and  the  prestige  of  the  church  formerly  con- 
ferred upon  him.  He  has  to  take  his  place  in 
the  ranks  of  other  influential  men  in  the  com- 
munity, and  he  possesses  only  such  authority 
as   his   words   and   his   personality   naturally 

I  For  a  discussion  of  the  relation  of  public  education  to  moral 
and  religious  training  see  Coe,  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals; 
Sadler,  op.  cit.,  and  my  book.  The  Culture  of  Religion. 

[15  1 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

carry  with  them.  Small  wonder,  then,  that 
the  interests  for  which  the  church  specifically 
stands  should  have  suffered  some  decline,  and 
that  the  life  of  the  people  should  have  become 
pretty  thoroughly  secularized.  This  is  only 
to  be  expected,  especially  when,  as  is  at  present 
the  case,  no  clear  division  of  labor  between  the 
church  and  the  state  has  been  effected,  and  no 
systematic  measures  are  anywhere  taken  for 
the  conservation  of  our  spiritual  interests.  ^ 

Closely  connected  with  the  loss  of 

And  of  the  i        <>       i  i  ^  ^'    ' 

influence  of     coutrol   of   thc   moral   and   religious 

the  home.  ,  .  p     i  i  ^     • 

Situation  on  the  part  oi  the  church  is 
the  similar  failure  on  the  part  of  an  institution 
of  at  least  equal  importance  for  the  main- 
tenance of  spiritual  culture,  the  home.  Noth- 
ing is  more  striking,  even  to  the  casual 
observer,  than  the  publicity  of  our  modern 
life,  and  the  unsheltered  and  homeless  condi- 
tion of  great  portions  of  our  population.  It  is 
an  important  fact,  which,  one  fears,  much  reit- 
eration has  rendered  too  threadbare  for  vital 

>  I  seem  to  imply  here  that  moral  and  religious  training  in  educa- 
tional institutions  and  the  church,  which  are  the  main  social  instruments 
for  the  conservation  of  higher  forms  of  culture,  are  comparatively 
inefficient.  That  they  are  so  is,  I  think,  indisputable.  I  have  stated 
the  case  somewhat  fully  in  the  Educational  Review  for  March  1912, 
and  in  The  Culture  of  Religion. 

[16] 


INTRODUCTORY 


apprehension,  that  the  higher  Hfe  of  a  people, 
its  ethical  and  religious  culture,  depends 
largely  upon  the  home,  and  the  powerful 
influences  which  flow,  or  should  flow,  from  it. 
The  integrity  of  the  modern  home,  however, 
is  seriously  threatened  by  a  number  of 
influences,  the  two  most  alarming  of  which, 
I  should  say,  are  the  ease  and  frequency  of 
divorce,  and,  what  is  perhaps  even  more  dis- 
astrous, the  haste  and  nervous  intensity  of  our 
life,  with  its  tyrannical  demands,  which  take 
parents  and  children  alike  out  of  the  home  and 
into  the  engrossing  activities  of  business  and 
social  life.  Family  worship,  with  its  simple 
but  uplifting  associations,  is  rapidly  becoming 
a  memory.  The  companionship  of  parents, 
with  its  fortifying  confidences  and  intimacies, 
and  of  children  with  each  other,  is  being 
replaced  by  the  chance  companionship,  often 
superficial  and  even  dangerous,  of  the  street, 
the  shop  and  the  social  gathering. 
^     ,. .  This,  in  its  most  salient  features. 

Is  religion  ' 

obsolete?  -g  |.j^g  somewhat  critical  situation  in 
which  religion  finds  itself.  For  those,  of 
course,  who  regard  religion  as  a  neutral  or  a 
negative  influence  in  the  life  of  man,  or  even, 
3  [17] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

in  the  phrase  of  Burke,  "superstitious  folly, 
enthusiastical  nonsense  and  holy  tyranny," 
and  as  an  obstacle  to  progress,  the  present 
religious  situation  may  be  viewed  with  com- 
placency, or  may  even  be  regarded  as  a  hopeful 
symptom,  indicating,  as  it  does,  the  approach- 
ing dissolution  of  an  obsolete  feature  of  our 
civilization,  and  the  ushering  in  of  a  newer  and 
a  more  adequate  world-view.  I  do  not  myself 
share  this  attitude,  but  I  believe,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  the  abandonment,  or  even  the 
partial  obsolescence,  of  the  religious  point  of 
view  and  of  the  religious  life  would  mean  an 
irreparable  loss  to  culture,  a  loss  so  serious  as 
to  be  viewed  as  almost  a  social  calamity.  No 
candid  student  of  history  will  deny  that,  in 
spite  of  many  a  miscarriage  of  good  intention, 
in  spite,  even,  of  innumerable  evils  and  crimes 
perpetrated  in  the  name  of  religion  (too  much 
entirely,  I  think,  has  been  said  of  these)  the 
part  which  religion,  and  particularly  the 
Christian  religion,  has  played  in  the  progress 
of  humanity  has  been  an  altogether  notable 
one.  And  religion,  as  I  shall  maintain,  is 
today  one  of  the  most  genuine  and  permanent 
aspects  of  our  life,  and  an  ethical  force  of  truly 

[181 


INTRODUCTORY 


commanding  importance.  And  I  do  not  main- 
tain this  view  on  sentimental  grounds  merely, 
nor  on  the  basis  of  a  popular  and  traditional 
estimate  of  its  worth  and  meaning,  but  on 
philosophical  and  reflective  grounds  as  well. 

I  shall  seek  to  render  these  grounds  more 
explicit  in  the  following  sections.  Is  religion, 
like  the  vestigial  processes  of  an  organism,  or 
like  the  buttons  on  the  back  of  a  man's  coat, 
something  useless,  a  structure  which  has  out- 
lived its  function,  is  religion  a  remnant  merely 
of  a  pre-scientific  world-view,  or  has  it  today 
a  rightful  place  and  meaning  in  the  life  process 
as  a  whole? 

I  am  well  aware  that  to  many  this  question 
will  seem  a  gratuitous  one,  and  that  any  one 
who  raises  it  exposes  himself  to  various  sorts 
of  criticism.  There  will  be  those,  on  the  one 
hand,  who  will  regard  an  answer  favorable  to 
religion  as  self-evident,  and  the  question 
whether  religion  is  capable  of  justification  as 
somewhat  indelicate,  indicating  a  lack  of 
veneration.  To  any  one,  however,  who  is 
even  superficially  acquainted  with  the  great 
thought-movements  of  modern  Europe  and 
America,  it  will  not  be  news  that  there  exists 

[19] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

another  class  of  persons  (it  is  not  so  large  as 
it  is  independent  and  aggressive)  who  will 
regard  the  raising  of  the  question  as  gratuitous 
for  the  very  opposite  reason,  the  reason, 
namely,  that  any  attempt  to  justify  religion 
nowadays  must  necessarily  prove  antiquated 
and  futile.  It  is  my  strong  feeling,  at  any 
rate,  that  no  discussion  of  religion  will  prove 
entirely  adequate  in  the  present  state  of 
religious  opinion  which  does  not  begin  with  a 
frank  and  free  investigation  of  the  very  place 
and  validity  of  the  religious  consciousness 
itself.  The  following  sections  will  accordingly 
be  devoted  to  an  attempt,  on  a  modest  scale, 
to  be  sure,  but  I  hope  none  the  less  funda- 
mental, to  justify  religion  in  the  eyes  especially 
of  those  who  have  been  affected  by  the  scien- 
tific influences  referred  to  at  the  beginning  of 
the  present  section,  and  by  the  philosophical 
inferences  drawn  from  them.  Such  a  justifica- 
tion will  take  two  main  forms,  on  account  of 
the  twofold  aspect  of  religion,  which  I  shall 
seek  to  render  more  explicit  at  a  later  point. 
Religion  claims,  in  the  first  place,  to  be  an 
expression,  more  or  less  adequate,  of  the 
fundamental  nature  of  things.     It  contains  a 

[20] 


INTRODUCTORY 


view  of  the  universe  which  purports  to  be 
essentially  true.  This  we  may  call  its  theo- 
retical or  philosophical  aspect.  In  addition 
to  this,  however,  religion  sustains  a  normative 
or  practical  relation  to  man's  life.  This  we 
may  call  its  remedial  or  redemptive  function. 
It  is,  accordingly,  only  after  a  satisfactory 
disposition  of  the  intellectual  and  ethical  prob- 
lems raised  by  religion  has  been  made  that  we 
can  reasonably  countenance  any  form  of 
activity  or  life  purporting  to  be  distinctively 
religious. 

Literature 

Boutroux,    Science    and    Religion    in    Contemporary 

Philosophy,  Part  I. 
Haeckel,  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe. 
Paulsen,  A  System  of  Ethics,  Book  I,  Chapter  V. 
Sisson,  The  State  Taking  Over  the  Function  of  the 

Church,  Int.  Jo.  Ethics,  April  1907. 
Reports  R.  E.  A.,  II,  pp.  46  ff. 


[21 


II 

THE  NATURE  OF  RELIGION  AND 
ITS   RELATION  TO  PHILOSOPHY 


II 

THE  NATURE  OF  RELIGION  AND  ITS 
RELATION  TO  PHILOSOPHY 

I 

What  is  What,  then,  is  rehgion,  and  what 

reugion?  justification  can  be  given,  under  the 
conditions  of  modern  knowledge,  for  its  exist- 
ence as  a  phase  or  feature  of  our  modern  Hfe? 
"Rehgion,"  as  a  recent  writer  has  strikingly 
said,  "is  clearly  a  state  of  mind.''^  Now  a 
common  error  in  the  analysis  and  description 
of  this  state  of  mind  is  that  of  excessive  reduc- 
tion or  simplification.  Thus  religion  has 
frequently  been  identified  with  a  system  of 
intellectual  beliefs  or  propositions  concerning 
certain  objects,  such  as  the  beliefs  that  God 
exists,  that  he  controls  events  to  serve  his 
ends,  that  he  rewards  the  just,  and  the  like. 
Or,  second,  the  differentiating  feature  of 
religion  is  said  to  be  its  emotional  character. 
It  is  held  to  be  an  emotion,  or  a  group  of  emo- 
tions such  as  fear,  reverence,  love,  etc., 
prompted  by  some  supernatural  personage  or 

1  J.  E.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  p.  3. 
[25] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 

object.  Or,  finally,  there  are  those  who  asso- 
ciate religion  exclusively  with  morality  or 
conduct.  The  latter  view  is  naturally  a  very 
common  one  in  an  age  like  the  present,  wdth 
its  strong  emphasis  upon  everything  practical 
and  its  distrust  of  the  merely  academic  or 
intellectual.  1  Then  one  comes  upon  partial 
combinations  of  these  views,  as  in  the  cele- 
brated definition  of  religion  proposed  by 
Matthew  Arnold  as  "morality  touched  with 
emotion." 

Now  it  will  not  be  difiicult  to  show  that  all 
these  views  of  the  nature  of  religion  are  alike 
inadequate  to  the  richness  and  complexity  of 
the  religious  consciousness.  Let  us  first  take 
the  very  prevalent  view  of  religion  as  morality. 
A  moment's  reflection  will  show  that  religion 
must  be  something  wider  than  morality,  for 
there  are  many  persons  whom  we  should  un- 
questionably regard  as  moral,  in  the  sense  of 
high-minded  in  their  motives  and  their  con- 
duct, but  whom  we  should  hardly  w^ish  to  call 

1  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  many  so-called  religious  movements 
of  the  day  are  in  reality  social  and  philanthropic  in  their  nature,  the 
strictly  religious  elements  in  them  being  entirely  lacking  or  negUgible. 
The  Brotherhood  movement,  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
and  other  kindred  organizations,  are  primarily  ethical  or  social  in  the 
motive  and  character  of  their  activities. 

[26] 


THE   NATURE   OF   RELIGION 

religious.     Hume  and  John  Stuart  Mill  were 
well-known  Englishmen  of  this  type. 

Nor  would  it  be  entirely  satisfactory  to  call 
persons  religious  merely  because  they  pos- 
sessed certain  emotions,  no  matter  how  exalted 
these  emotions  might  be.  For  while  emotions 
may  become  very  serviceable  as  motivating 
forces,  prompting  to  useful  conduct,  it  is  also 
true  that  they  may  prove  very  volatile,  and 
that  they  often  spend  themselves  without 
leaving  any  very  solid  result  behind,  in  the 
shape  of  a  more  idealized  mode  of  life.  But 
a  religion  which  remains  merely  a  spirit- 
ual mood  could  perhaps  not  be  called  religion 
in  any  complete  sense  of  that  term. 

The  definition  of  religion  as  morality 
touched  with  emotion  has,  owing  to  the  con- 
ciseness with  which  it  is  stated,  and  its  super- 
ficial plausibility,  been  widely  circulated. 
Still,  this  characterization  of  religion  does  not 
serve  us  much  better  than  the  previous  ones. 
For  there  are  doubtless  many  "merely  moral" 
persons  whose  moral  activity  is  accompanied 
by  strong  emotional  fervor.  In  fact,  a  person 
who  does  not  possess  some  emotional  enthu- 
siasm for  some  moral  cause  or  other  is  an  excep- 

[271 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

tion  so  rare  as  to  be  rightly  regarded  as  a 
moral  monstrosity.  As  Professor  Mackenzie 
well  says,  conduct  becomes  emotional  when- 
ever it  is  directed  to  some  end  which  we  have 
come  to  regard  as  supremely  important. 
But  conduct  believed  to  be  very  important, 
and  hence  accompanied  by  strong  emotion, 
is  not  necessarily  more  religious  than  that  of 
the  good  workman  who  carefully  jBnishes  his 
job  without  feeling  that  anything  particular 
is  at  stake.  "The  truth  is  that  the  emotional 
quality  of  our  actions  depends  largely  on  the 
question  whether  they  are  habitual  acts,  acts 
which  belong  to  the  ordinary  universe  within 
which  we  live,  or  whether  we  are  rising  into 
an  unfamiliar  universe.  Now  it  may  readily 
be  granted  that  religion,  in  any  real  sense  of 
the  word,  can  hardly  be  made  so  habitual  as 
not  to  involve  some  uplifting  of  the  soul,  some 
withdrawal  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
ordinary  life  to  a  more  comprehensive  or  more 
profound  apprehension  of  the  world  and  of 
our  relation  to  it.  Hence  it  can  hardly  fail 
to  involve  emotion.  Even  the  Amor  intel- 
lectualis  Dei  of  Spinoza,  however  purely 
intellectual   it   may   be,    is   still   amor.     But 

[28] 


THE   NATURE   OF  RELIGION 

conduct  may  involve  strong  and  deep  emotion 
and  yet  not  be  specially  religious." ^ 

The  identification  of  religion  with  theology, 
finally,  must  prove  equally  unsatisfactory. 
A  man  may  subscribe  to  all  the  creeds  in 
Christendom  and  still  be,  by  common  consent, 
a  non-religious,  or  even  an  unreligious  person. 
All  this  is  so  obvious,  I  take  it,  as  to  require 
no  further  discussion. 

Let  us  say,  therefore,  that  religion  cannot 
successfully  be  defined  in  terms  of  any  phase 
or  activity  of  our  inner  life  exclusively.  It  is 
not  conduct  nor  morality,  though  it  doubtless 
includes  conduct  or  morality;  it  is  not  a  sys- 
tem of  beliefs,  though,  as  I  have  already  inti- 
mated elsewhere,  it  includes  beliefs;  it  is  not 
an  emotion,  though  it,  like  literature,  will, 
if  it  is  vital,  manifest  enthusiasm  and  emo- 
tional glow.  Religion  is  not  a  belief,  nor  an 
emotion,  nor  an  attitude  of  will  exclusively: 
it  is  all  of  these  at  once.  It  is  man's  total 
attitude  and  outlook.  I  should  define  it  as 
an  emotion  based  upon  a  cojiviction  that  events 

1  A  Manual  of  Ethics,  pp.  434-435.  For  a  further  discussion  of 
Matthew  Arnold's  view  see  Professor  Muirhead's  Elements  of  Ethics, 
p.  180. 

[29] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

are  being  overruled  in  view  of  a  supreme  and 
lasting  good,  and  an  attitude  of  cooperation  with 
the  Power  in  the  miiverse  making  for  this  good.  ^ 

That  emotions  such  as  awe,  reverence  and 
love,  which  characterize  the  higher  rehgions, 
should  accompany  such  a  belief  as  is  here 
described  is  entirely  natural  in  view  of  the 
fragile  and  transient  character  of  man's  life 
and  of  his  life  interests  when  compared  with 
the  magnificent  but  apparently  indifferent 
universe  in  which  his  life  is  set.  As  Professor 
Perry  has  eloquently  said:  "There  is  nothing 
that  he  can  build,  nor  any  precaution  that 
he  can  take,  that  weighs  appreciably  in  the 
balance  against  the  powers  which  decree  good 
and  ill  fortune,  catastrophe  and  triumph, 
life  and  death. "^ 

The  above  analysis  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness has  entirely  failed  of  its  purpose  if 
it  has  suggested  that  the  emotional,  cognitive 

1  Cf .  the  definition  of  religion  given  by  Mr.  McTaggart,  op.  cit., 
p.  3  £f.  For  similar  views  see  Jastrow,  The  Study  of  Religion;  Perry, 
Approach  to  Philosophy;  Galloway,  Principles  of  Religious  Develop- 
ment. Religion,  it  is  seen,  is  here  defined  simply  as  optimism.  But 
since  optimism  connects  itself  essentially,  to  my  mind,  with  a  person- 
alistic  or  theistic  interpretation  of  the  universe  we  might  define 
religion  briefly  as  theistic  optimism. 

2  R.  B.  Perry,  The  Moral  Economy,  p.  215. 

[30] 


THE   NATURE   OF   RELIGION 

and  active  features  which  it  contains  exist  as 
insulated  or  sundered  elements  of  our  inner 
life,  as  an  older  departmental  or  faculty 
psychology  too  often  suggested.  That  is 
indeed  the  fundamental  weakness  from  which 
the  various  partial  definitions  of  religion 
criticized  above  suffered.  Bain,  Professor 
James,  and  other  modern  psychologists  have 
thoroughly  domesticated  the  view  of  the 
dynamic  quality  of  all  mental  states,  the 
tendency  of  mental  states  to  express  them- 
selves, to  pass  over  into  actions.  A  thought, 
as  one  often  hears,  is  a  nascent  act.  In  feeling, 
too,  as  Galloway  says,  a  potential  conation  is 
always  involved,  and  conation,  in  its  turn, 
reports  itself  to  consciousness  in  terms  of 
feeling.  1  The  complete  fusion  of  cognitive, 
feeling  and  active  states  is  well  illustrated  by 
the  experience  of  interest,  where  the  cogni- 
tive, affective  and  impulsive  aspects  are  fused 
into  a  unitary  whole  of  mental  content.  The 
mind,  in  fact,  is  not  an  aggregate  of  depart- 
ments or  faculties,  but  a  unity.  This  view 
is  indeed  almost  forced  upon  us  when  we  re- 
member the  fluid,  streaming  character  of  con- 

1  Galloway,  op.  cif.,  p.  78. 
[31] 


THE   PROBLEM   OP   RELIGION 

sciousness,  upon  which  recent  psychology  has 
so  much  insisted.  Mental  processes  do  not 
exist  as  clearly  demarcated  entities  whose 
fundamental  character  remains  stable  through 
successive  intervals  of  time;  they  are  highly 
mobile  and  unstable,  shifting  and  changing 
constantly,  re-enforcing,  crossing,  interfering 
and  combining  with  each  other  in  endless  ways, 
each  detailed  process  being  eventually  lost 
within  the  unity  of  the  whole,  much  as  a  drop 
of  water  surrenders  its  individual  identity  in 
the  depths  of  the  forward-flowing  stream. 

The  ideas,  emotions  and  attitudes  called 
religious  not  only  merge  into  and  qualify  each 
other;  they  are,  in  the  well-constituted  mind, 
at  least,  combined  with,  and  qualified  by,  the 
more  strictly  secular  elements  of  our  cognitive 
and  practical  life.  So  scientific  ideas,  for 
example,  gained  in  the  growth  of  knowledge, 
exert  an  inevitable  reconstructive  influence 
over  popular  and  traditional  theological  no- 
tions; the  fortunes  of  life,  resulting  in  a  given 
emotional  disposition,  will  affect  the  tone  of 
the  more  specifically  religious  emotions,  etc. 

An  important  application  of  a  pedagogical 
sort  may  profitably  be  made  at  this  point. 

[321 


THE   NATURE   OF   RELIGION 

Religion  not  only  should  be,  but  to  a  large 
extent  must  be,  the  normal  outgrowth  of  the 
various  experiences,  scientific  or  otherwise,  of 
life  as  a  whole.  A  religious  view  of  the  world, 
for  example,  if  it  is  to  be  more  than  an  external 
accretion,  to  be  sloughed  off  at  the  first  rude 
shock  received  at  the  hands  of  science  or  phil- 
osophical reflection,  must  be  in  some  genuine 
sense  the  result,  not  of  dogmatic  teaching  or 
authoritative  prescription,  but  of  the  ideas 
and  experiences  gained  from  the  observation 
of  nature  and  of  men,  from  the  study  of  litera- 
ture and  of  science,  and  the  intelligent  assimi- 
lation of  these  inevitable  materials  of  our 
spiritual  culture. 

Thepsychoi-  ^^^  discussiou  has  not  carried  us 
pwJsoph?'^  far.  For  it  must  be  obvious,  on  a 
ofreugion.  momcnt's  reflection,  that  a  study  of 
religion,  if  it  is  to  be  at  all  fundamental,  cannot 
rest  with  a  mere  psychological  description  of 
it,  such  as  was  roughly  outlined  above.  We 
come  upon  the  important  distinction  at  this 
point  between  the  psychology  of  religion,  in  a 
strict  sense  of  that  term,  and  the  philosophy 
of  religion.  An  item  of  psychical  experience, 
namely,  cannot  be  merely  matter  for  the 
4  [33] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

descriptive  efforts  of  the  scientist,  like  a  botan- 
ical specimen,  for  example,  or  a  mineral.  An 
idea,  like  a  leaf,  does  indeed  have  a  certain 
structure.  And  this  structure,  like  the  struc- 
ture of  the  leaf,  can  be  described.  Unlike 
the  leaf,  however,  and  unlike  any  other  non- 
mental  phenomenon,  the  idea  or  the  experi- 
ence points  beyond  itself:  it  claims  cognitive 
validity,  claims  to  be  true.  In  addition  to 
being  described,  therefore,  it  can  be  tested 
for  its  truth.  So  with  an  attitude  of  will. 
It  too  can  be  treated  analytically  and  descrip- 
tively, in  complete  abstraction  from  its  moral 
or  social  value.  But  here  again  the  will  atti- 
tude of  a  man,  unlike  any  physical  phenome- 
non, can  be  subjected  to  an  ethical  test.  The 
question  raised  concerning  it  is  not  now.  What 
is  it?  but.  What  is  its  ethical  or  social  value .^^ 
What  is  its  status  when  it  is  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  an  ethical  norm  or  ideal  .^^  Now 
the  religious  experience,  like  any  other  mental 
content,  can  be  subjected  to  a  similar  two- 
fold treatment.  It  is  in  the  first  place  a 
phenomenon,  an  empirical  fact.  It  has  cer- 
tain morphological  features  which  can  be 
outlined  and  described.     But  religious  experi- 

[34] 


THE   NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

ence  does  not  merely  bulge.  It  claims  truth 
and  ethical  worth.  And  in  so  doing  it  sub- 
jects itself  to  an  intellectual  and  ethical  test. 

It  must  be  evident  that,  however  interesting 
the  psychological  analysis  of  religion  may  be, 
and  however  important  as  materials  for  the 
philosophy  of  religion  the  varieties  of  religious 
experience  may  be,  it  is  after  all  the  question 
of  the  validity  of  the  religious  consciousness 
in  which  men  are  mainly  interested.  As 
Principal  Forsyth  has  somewhere  cleverly  put 
it,  the  question  we  wish  most  to  have  an- 
swered is  not.  What  do  I  feel?  but,  What  do  I 
feeLf^  We  must  somehow  escape  from  the 
charmed  circle  of  our  subjectivity,  and  essay 
the  more  difficult  task  of  assessing  religion's 
truth  and  worth.  What  essential  elements  of 
truth  does  it  contain  which  challenge  our 
intellectual  and  ethical  loyalty? 

How  can  questions  of  this  kind  be 

The  sources  i  ^i        /^     i  t  i  i  i 

of  reugious  answcrcd.''  Only,  1  reply,  by  the 
methods  known  to  science  and  phil- 
osophy, the  sober  and  laborious  methods  of 
investigation  and  intellectual  reflection.  The- 
ology, if  it  is  to  maintain  the  honored  place 
among  the  other  sciences  which  it  has  often 

[35] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

occupied  in  the  past,  must  become  scientific 
in  procedure:  theology  must  become  philos- 
ophy of  religion. 

The  method  of  dealing  with  the  religious 
problem  suggested  here  is  not  one,  as  every- 
body knows,  which  has  always  been  accepted 
as  valid  for  the  solution  of  the  problem  in 
question.  We  shall  do  well,  therefore,  to 
examine  at  this  point  some  of  the  principal 
methods  which  have  in  the  past  been  relied 
upon  to  deal  with  theological  questions. 

II 

The  theory  Two  thcorics  which  havc  played 
of  intuition,  ^j^  enormously  large  part  in  the 
thinking  both  of  theologically  inclined  lay- 
men and  of  professed  theologians  are  the 
theories  of  intuition  and  of  revelation.  The 
first  would  seem  to  hold  that  theological 
truths,  in  common  perhaps  with  certain  other 
kinds  of  truth,  are  arrived  at,  not  by  the 
method  of  observation  and  reflection  employed 
by  other  scientific  disciplines,  but  by  a  process 
of  intuition  or  immediate  insight,  similar  to 
the  immediate,  i.  e.,  unreasoned,  insight  into 
the  truth  of  a  mathematical   axiom  or  the 

[36] 


THE    NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

existence  of  the  external  world.  Such  alleged 
truths  are  often  referred  to  as  "  primary- 
truths,"  "innate  ideas,"  "fundamental  intui- 
tions," and  the  like.  This  theory,  it  is  worthy 
of  notice,  is  not  necessarily  a  theological 
theory  of  the  origin  of  knowledge,  i.  e.,  it  does 
not  necessarily  assert  that  the  truth  arising 
from  such  intuitive  insight  is  God-given. 
This  source  of  truth  might  be  open  even  if  God 
did  not  exist  at  all.  God's  existence  might, 
of  course,  be  revealed  by  an  intuition,  and 
such  a  method  of  disclosure  of  this  truth  has 
often  been  asserted. 

There  is  an  important  element  of  truth  in 
the  intuition  theory,  which,  while  not  upper- 
most in  the  minds  of  intuitional  writers,  may 
well  be  emphasized  at  this  point.  If  it  is 
meant  that  truth  is  something  which  can  be 
validated  only  by  bringing  it  to  the  test  of 
human  experience,  that  there  is  no  higher 
court  of  appeal  than  thought  itself,  then  the 
theory  expresses  a  truth  which  is  absolutely 
fundamental  to  any  philosophy  of  religion 
which  can  hope  to  gain  any  wide  acceptance 
from  thinking  men  today.  The  intuitionist 
theory,  however,  means  more  than  this.     It 

[37] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

means  to  remove  certain  propositions  from  the 
rest  of  the  mind's  acquirements,  so  that  they 
shall  be  exempt  from  correction  and  criticism 
by  the  body  of  human  experience  as  a  whole. 
This  is  a  serious  step  which  would  involve  us 
in  a  number  of  rather  serious  difficulties  the 
details  of  which  are  perhaps  too  recondite  to 
deal  with  in  this  place.  Truth  ought  to  be 
looked  upon  as  something  which  grows  at 
every  point  with  observation  and  reflection, 
something  which  is  self-validating  and  self- 
corrective.  The  only  criterion  of  the  truth 
of  anything,  accordingly,  is  its  coherence  or 
consistency  with  the  body  of  human  experi- 
ence as  a  whole  at  any  stage  of  its  growth. 
The  only  way  a  truth  once  established  can  be 
further  confirmed  or  overthrown  is  by  fresh 
additions  to  the  total  stock  of  knowledge  or 
the  more  complete  organization  of  already 
existing  truths,  or  both.  Such  fresh  additions 
and  internal  reorganization  may  add  an  unex- 
pected force  to  a  hitherto  neglected  principle, 
or  may  result  in  the  expulsion  of  other  ideas 
as  erroneous  and  obsolete.  The  revolution 
in  the  prevailing  system  of  astronomy  by  the 
discoveries  and  theories  of  Copernicus,  and 

[38] 


THE    NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

the  radical  revision  of  large  bodies  of  popular 
and  scientific  knowledge  through  the  influence 
of  Darwinian  discoveries  and  hypotheses  are 
perhaps  the  most  notable  examples  in  the 
history  of  science  of  the  process  referred  to. 

A  common  criterion  by  which  intuitive 
ideas  were  supposed  to  be  recognized  as  such 
was  the  vivacity  or  intensity  which  they 
showed,  the  compulsive  force  with  which  they 
presented  themselves  to  the  intellect.  It  is 
interesting  to  notice,  however,  that  the  most 
insistent  and  vivid  experiences  which  we  have, 
namely  sensory  and  perceptual  experiences, 
are  not  exempt  from  the  corroborative  valida- 
tion of  the  kind  I  have  mentioned.  A  given 
sense  impression  is  often  corrected  by  another, 
as  when  we  correct  the  vast  feeling  of  the  hol- 
low in  a  tooth  as  reported  by  the  tongue  by  a 
subsequent  visual  impression,  or  when  we 
deny  the  validity  of  a  person's  perception, 
and  call  it  an  illusion,  if  it  does  not  correspond 
to  the  perceptions  received  by  others  of  the 
same  object.  The  colors  seen  by  a  color- 
blind person  are  certainly  genuine  and  com- 
pulsive experiences  for  the  person  concerned. 
That  does  not  keep  us,  however,  from  calling 

[39] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

his  experiences  erroneous,  and  his  perceptive 
powers  defective.  The  force  with  which  an 
idea  appeals  to  an  individual's  mind  depends, 
in  any  case,  upon  other  conditions  than  its 
intrinsic  truth  or  reasonableness,  such  as  its 
emotional  quality,  its  connections  with  the 
individual's  interests,  the  length  of  time  it  has 
been  entertained,  the  social  support  it  receives, 
etc.  The  history  of  thought,  at  all  events, 
shows  innumerable  examples  of  opinions  to 
which  men  have  held  with  the  utmost  tenacity 
of  conviction,  but  which  subsequent  knowl- 
edge nevertheless  proved  to  be  false. 

Perhaps  the  most  troublesome  difficulty  in 
all  intuitional  theories  arises  out  of  the  con- 
sideration that  truths  which  are  intuitive 
ought  to  be  universally  held,  for  there  would 
seem  to  be  no  reason  why  one  person  should 
have  access  to  these  truths  and  not  another. 
A  very  ready  answer  to  anyone  who  claims  a 
given  proposition  as  intuitive  would  be  for 
another  to  deny  that  he  has  an  intuitive 
knowledge  of  the  proposition  in  question,  but 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  regards  it  as  highly 
doubtful.  And  it  is  a  fact  that  there  are  no 
ideas  which  have  gained  the  universal  assent  of 

[40] 


THE    NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

mankind  unless  they  are  truths,  Hke  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  which  are  attenuated  to  such  a 
point  as  to  be  emptied  of  all  content  and 
significance.  Even  the  idea  of  God's  exist- 
ence, abstract  and  devitalized  as  it  is,  does  not 
enjoy  universal  assent.  For  there  are  athe- 
ists who  profess  not  to  have  the  idea. 

Modern  psychology,  with  its  strong  em- 
phasis on  the  part  played  by  social  imitation 
in  the  adoption  of  given  ideas  or  propositions, 
is  in  any  case  prepared  to  explain  the  very 
general  prevalence  which  certain  ideas  seem  to 
enjoy.  The  vast  majority  of  opinions  and 
ideas  held  by  the  average  man  are  of  course 
not  the  product  of  his  individual  insight  or 
reflection.  A  given  idea  may  be  the  result 
of  the  original  reflection  of  some  individual, 
or  it  may  be  the  result,  accumulated  through 
considerable  periods  of  time,  of  the  reflections 
of  a  large  number  of  individuals.  After  being 
thus  formed,  it  is  handed  along  from  one  to 
another  until  it  becomes  the  common  stock 
in  trade  of  a  large  number  of  individuals,  and 
even  of  whole  social  groups. 

A  somewhat  related  point  is  that  many  ideas 
which  appear  to  have  been  reached  without 

[41] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 


any  previous  process  of  reasoning  were  as  a 
matter  of  fact  reached  by  steps  too  rapid  to 
have  been  clearly  noticed,  or  by  inferences  and 
reflections  carried  on  too  long  ago  to  be  dis- 
tinctly remembered.  So  the  mathematician 
operates  with  many  conceptions  and  formulas 
which  he  at  one  time  demonstrated  to  him- 
self, but  which  he  now  takes  for  granted,  and 
in  every-day  life  we  often  find  ourselves  con- 
fidently holding  to  a  certain  decision,  without 
being  able,  at  the  time,  to  remember  just  how 
we  arrived  at  it. 

The  view  that  religious  truths  are 
reveia-  thc  rcsult  of  a  primitive  revelation 

made  to  certain  exceptional  or 
favored  individuals  is  a  theological  theory 
which  shows  certain  interesting  resemblances 
to  the  philosophical  theory  of  the  intuitive 
origin  of  knowledge  just  discussed.  Here  too 
the  ideas  supposed  to  be  revealed  purport  to 
be  final  and  irreversible  expressions  of  truth, 
so  that  the  only  task  left  for  theology  is  to 
expound,  systematize  and  enforce  them.  This 
curious  theory  offers  a  brilliant  illustration  of 
the  elaborate  workings  of  the  instinct  of  social 
imitation  referred  to  above,  in  virtue  of  which 

[42] 


THE   NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

a  notion,  although  intrinsically  unintelligible, 
is  given  a  currency  and  is  held  with  a  tenacity 
directly  proportionate  to  the  amount  of  social 
sanction  which  it  receives,  and  the  length  of 
time  it  has  successfully  prevailed.  The  notion 
of  a  primitive  revelation  of  a  final  and  com- 
pleted truth  is  so  fragile  as  to  crumble  under 
the  slightest  touch  of  psychology.  It  appears 
to  rest,  in  the  first  place,  upon  the  assumption 
of  an  idyllic  state  of  society  in  the  far-away 
past  in  which  man's  intellectual  powers  were 
more  perfect,  and  his  heart  less  corrupted, 
than  now,  a  view  which  our  larger  knowledge 
has  taught  us  to  put  by  as  a  poetic  fiction. 
As  President  Schurman  has  well  said:  "Learn- 
ing is  a  process  of  interpreting  the  unknown 
by  what  is  already  known.  And  the  knowl- 
edge of  primitive  man,  who  was  engaged  in  an 
absorbing  struggle  for  life,  whose  experiences 
scarcely  got  beyond  objects  of  food,  shelter, 
and  defence,  whose  very  language  denoted 
only  sensible  things  and  events,  did  not  con- 
tain the  elements  necessary  for  the  assimila- 
tion of  the  doctrine  of  the  existence  of  one 
infinite  spirit,  even  if  one  imagined  it  poured 
into  all  the  avenues  of  his  intelligence  by  an 

[43] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 


external  revealer.  .  .  .  The  necessity  of  a 
human  faculty  of  comprehension  cannot  be 
dispensed  with  even  when  the  eternal  Wisdom 
condescends  to  instruction.  The  influence 
of  mind  on  mind  is  never  mechanical.  There 
is  always  self -active  cooperation.     Even 

'  A  jest's  prosperity  lies  in  the  ear 

Of  him  that  hears  it,  never  in  the  tongue 

Of  him  that  makes  it.'  " 

In  the  second  place,  even  if  there  were  some 
primal,  supernatural  source  from  which  the 
uncorrupted  truth  originated,  it  would  be  a 
psychological  impossibility  to  communicate 
the  same  truth  to  individuals  of  different 
experiences  and  different  grades  of  mental 
capacity.  Truth  cannot,  like  so  much  coin, 
be  passed  from  one  individual  to  another  un- 
changed. No  man  can  receive  more  than  he 
is  prepared  to  receive.  The  truth  must 
always,  therefore,  accommodate  itself  to 
the  limits  and  the  conditions  of  human 
receptivity.  It  must,  before  it  is  received, 
be  compressed,  so  to  speak,  to  the  dimensions 
of  the  mind  that  is  to  receive  it.  This  is  a 
fundamental  pedagogical  truth  which  every 

[44] 


THE   NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

teacher  must  recognize  and  observe  if  he  is 
not  to  fail  of  his  object. 

As  is  frequently  the  case  with  ancient  doc- 
trines like  the  present  one,  there  is  an  element 
of  truth  in  it  which  can  be  identified  if  it  can 
be  disengaged  from  the  elaborate  theological 
dogmas  which  encumber  it.  In  the  sense  that 
my  faculties  are  not  of  my  own  invention,  in 
the  sense  that  truth  is  not  of  my  own  making, 
but  is  something  objective,  something  which 
can  be  discovered  or  found, — in  that  sense  all 
truth  is  revealed.  It  is  not  my  own  creation, 
it  is  the  gift  of  God. 

The  question  of  the  place  and  significance 
of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  Scriptures,  a 
question  of  deep,  though  often  somewhat  unin- 
telligent, interest  on  the  part  of  a  great  many 
people,  has  already  by  implication  been  an- 
swered. These  writings,  composed  by  men 
of  exceptional  religious  insight  and  moral 
genius,  are  invaluable  as  materials  for  religious 
and  ethical  culture.  "They  contain  immortal 
sentences,  they  have  been  bread  of  life  to  mil- 
lions." Let  it  however  be  understood  once 
and  for  all  that  their  credentials  for  the  think- 
ing man  of  today  can  never  be  the  names  of  the 

[45  1 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

writers  who  produced  them,  nor  the  miracu- 
lous events  by  which  they  are  often  said 
to  be  authenticated.  The  only  authentica- 
tion which  the  Scriptures  need,  and  the 
only  one  of  which  they  are  capable,  is  their 
intrinsic  reasonableness  and  moral  power,  a 
reasonableness  and  power  which  can  be  proved 
only  by  being  brought  to  the  test  of  present 
experience.  The  crucial  question  is,  Do  these 
writings  commend  themselves  to  the  instructed 
intelligence  and  conscience.'^  Are  they  gen- 
uine contributions  to  the  race's  wisdom,  and 
do  they  enter  our  lives  to  deepen,  ransom  and 
enfranchise  them.^  If  so,  then  their  light  will 
not  fail:  then  the  floods  of  criticism  will  beat 
against  them  in  vain.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
they  meet  no  fundamental  human  need,  if  no 
access  of  strength  accrues  from  them  to  the 
higher  life,  if  our  moral  nature  fiinds  no  re-en- 
forcement through  them,  then  no  amount  of 
artificial  defence,  no  matter  how  resourceful 
and  determined,  will  long  save  them  from 
eventual  elimination  along  with  other  insti- 
tutions and  monuments  which  have  failed  to 
prove  their  fitness  to  survive.  Moreover,  like 
other  literary  and  spiritual  achievements  of 

[46] 


THE   NATURE   OF   RELIGION 

the  past,  they  cannot,  at  the  risk  of  losing  our 
spiritual  strength,  be  merely  assimilated,  as  if 
the  recapitulation  of  the  past  were  the  object 
of  our  spiritual  striving.  They  are  rather 
materials  with  which  our  own  culture  must 
begin;  mere  "occasions  for  new  cove  tings, 
new  triumphs."  For  a  completed  human  cul- 
ture is  an  infinite  ideal  to  which  we  can  ap- 
proach nearer  and  nearer  with  the  progress 
of  time,  but  which  we  can  never  reach  nor 
exhaust. 

It  follows  from  what  has  been  said  that 
revelation  is  not  confined  to  so-called  sacred 
books,  nor  to  the  past.  That  spiritual  leaders 
will  arise  in  the  future  as  they  have  in  the  past 
we  may  confidently  expect.  Drawing  their 
inspiration  from  the  inexhaustible  fountain  of 
nature  and  their  own  hearts,  as  well  as  from 
the  hoarded  riches  of  humanity's  past,  they 
will  carry  forward  the  torch  of  truth,  and 
advance  to  greater  conquests  of  the  spirit  than 
any  yet  attained.  "The  doors  of  the  temple 
stand  open  day  and  night  before  every  man, 
and  the  oracles  of  truth  never  cease."  The 
achievements  of  the  past  are  varied  and  pre- 
cious.    But  the  present  and  the  future,  too, 

[47] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

have  their  claim,  "their  distinct  and  trembhng 
beauty."  No  one  has  been  more  enamoured 
of  this  claim  and  charm  than  Emerson,  that 
wonderful  spokesman  of  the  individual  and 
of  the  future.  Men  talk,  says  he,  as  if  reve- 
lation were  closed,  as  though  God  were  dead. 
"It  is  the  office  of  every  true  teacher  to  show 
us  that  God  is,  not  was;  that  he  speaketh, 
not  spake";  that  miracles,  prophesy,  poetry, 
the  ideal  life,  the  holy  life  do  not  exist  as 
ancient  history  merely,  but  as  an  ever-present 
possibiHty  that  lies  before  every  man  if  he 
will  rid  himself  of  misgivings  which  paralyze, 
and  believe  in  his  essential  greatness  and 
strength.  1 

III 

Problems  Thc  ouly  Valid  source  of  religious 

ph^L-  truth,  then,  is  philosophy.  It  will 
reugion.  bc  wcll  to  iudicatc  now  the  main 
lines  of  philosophical  discussion  which  are 
relevant  to  the  problem  of  religion.  They 
seem  to  me  to  reduce  to  about  four  funda- 
mental types,  though  these  types  ultimately 

1  Every  one  should  read  the  whole  of  Emerson's  Divnnity  School 
Address,  which  is  perhaps  the  most  eloquent  defense  of  the  spiritual 
independence  of  the  individual  in  American  literature. 

[481 


THE   NATURE   OF   RELIGION 

come  down  to  the  single  issue  of  optimism  and 
pessimism,  as  will  be  seen. 

The  first  question  of  a  philosophical 

Is  reality 

matter  or       soft  wlilch  has  rcliglous  implicatious 

spirit? 

is  the  question  of  the  fundamental 
nature  of  reality.  What  is  the  stuff,  so  to 
speak,  out  of  which  reality  is  made,  and  to 
which  it  is  ultimately  reducible?  All  the  his- 
torical answers  to  this  question,  omitting 
minor  types  and  dualistic  hypotheses,  are 
either  materialistic  or  idealistic  in  their  nature. 
Reality  can  be  finally  interpreted  either  in 
terms  of  matter  or  physical  energy,  or  it  can 
be  interpreted  in  terms  of  spirit.  It  must  be 
obvious  without  further  discussion  that  the 
solution  of  the  first  metaphysical  problem, 
whatever  it  may  turn  out  to  be,  must  have 
some  interest  for  the  philosophy  of  religion. 
isthecourse         But,    sccoud,    reality    is    nothing 

of  the   uni- 
verse me-       quiescent,    as    our   experience   every 

chanical  or 

teuc?  day   sufficiently   informs    us.     It   is 

essentially  something  dynamic  and  mobile, 
"hurled  from  change  to  change  unceasingly." 
The  problem  presented  by  the  restless  and 
unceasing  mutability  of  existence  is,  indeed, 
one  of  the  oldest  and  most  persistent  in  the 
5  [49] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

whole  range  of  philosophy  and  literature. 
Is  this  change  mere  change,  issuing  nowhere? 
Is  it  capricious,  or  is  it  orderly,  cumulative, 
productive  of  results?  And  if  productive  of 
results,  are  these  results  the  impartial  and 
fatal  products  of  mechanical  processes,  oper- 
ating blindly,  or  are  they,  in  some  sense, 
the  product  of  intelligent  contrivance,  of  wil- 
ful foresight? 

The   rob-  There  is  one  further  problem  which 

lemofevii.  philosopliy  must  solvc,  aud  it  is  in 
a  sense  the  most  important  of  all  for  religion: 
the  problem  of  optimism  and  pessimism.  Are 
the  forces  operating  in  the  universe  indifferent 
to  ethical  distinctions,  or  even  inimical  to 
ideal  interests  and  values?  Or  is  the  move- 
ment of  the  world  process  a  movement  for- 
ward towards  "some  great,  divine  event?" 
To  put  it  Browning's  way,  do  we  find  in 
nature  merely  a  wasteful  and  unethical  dis- 
play of  power,  or  do  we  find  love  in  it  too? 
Much  has  been  said  of  the  religious  bearings 
of  the  theory  of  evolution,  and  we  shall  have 
something  more  to  say  upon  that  topic  in  the 
proper  connection.  What  I  wish  to  emphasize 
here  is  that  the  important  religious  issue  is 

[50] 


THE    NATURE    OF   RELIGION 

not  the  old  issue  between  creation  and  evolu- 
tion, but  rather  the  problem  of  the  actual 
nature  of  the  world,  and  of  the  possibility 
of  progress.  The  critical  religious  question 
is  evidently  not  by  what  method  the  world 
and  our  life  have  been  produced,  but  rather 
what  the  particular  method  employed  has 
effected.  Is  the  world  as  we  know  it  one  in 
which  we  may  realize  fairly  well  our  legitimate 
interests  and  purposes?  Are  the  conditions 
and  prospects  of  life  such  that  we  are  enabled 
to  pronounce  the  world  good  on  the  whole  .^^ 
This  is  the  fundamental  question  upon  the 
answer  to  which  a  religious  view  of  the  world 
must  ultimately  depend. 

The   three   types   of  problems   so 

The  relation 

ofreugionto     far  meutioucd  are  clearly  philosophi- 

morality. 

cal  in  character,  and  they  must  be 
solved  by  the  aid  of  philosophy.  But  we 
now  come  upon  another  salient  test  of  the 
validity  of  religion,  the  importance  of  which 
cannot  easily  be  exaggerated.  Religion,  we 
have  said,  contains  certain  theoretical  ele- 
ments, certain  beliefs  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
world  in  which  we  live.  It  is  a  theory  of 
life,   offering   an    illumination    of    life.      But 

[51] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

religion  contains  also  certain  mandatory  or 
ethical  features,  which  become  extremely 
important  in  any  final  evaluation  of  it.  Be- 
sides being  a  theory  of  life,  religion  is  also  a 
force  in  life.  Its  solution  of  the  world  prob- 
lem is  not  theoretical  merely,  it  is  also  practi- 
cal. Religion  is  not  merely  speculative,  it 
is  remedial  as  well.  It  is  an  ethical  impera- 
tive, a  call  to  duty,  a  programme  of  salvation. 
Christ  came  into  the  world,  according  to  his 
words,  both  to  enlighten  the  world  and  to 
save  the  world.  If  the  ethical  function  of 
religion  is  as  prominent  as  here  des,cribed, 
religion  will  necessarily  have  to  submit  to 
an  ethical  test.  Is  there  anything  in  the 
nature  of  religion  which  essentially  fits  it 
for  its  moral  task.'^ 

These  are  the  salient  questions  to  the 
consideration  of  which  we  must  now  address 
ourselves. 

Literature 

Caird,  J.,  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Religion, 

Chapters  I-III. 
Galloway,  Principles  of  Religious  Development. 
Hoffding,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  especially  Part 

HI. 

[52] 


THE   NATURE   OF   RELIGION 

Leuba,    The    Contents    of    Religious    Consciousness, 

The  Monist,  Vol.  XI,  p.  536  ff. 
McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  Chapter  I. 
Rashdall,  Philosophy  and  Religion,  Lecture  V. 
Royce,  Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  Chapters  I-III. 
Sabatier,  Outhnes  of  a  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Chapters 

I-III. 
Schurman,  Belief  in  God,  Lecture  III. 


[53] 


Ill 

MATERIALISM  AND  IDEALISM 


Ill 

MATERIALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

Among  the  metaphysical  views  which  render 
any  religious  construction  of  our  experience 
difficult,  or  in  principle  impossible,  the  best 
known  is  perhaps  the  theory  called  material- 
ism. The  fundamental  dogma  of  materialism 
is  that  matter  is  the  sole  reality,  mind  being 
only  a  subordinate  phase  or  an  effect  of  matter. 
It  is  generally  understood  that  materialism 
has  been  superseded  in  the  progress  of  modern 
thought,  and  it  is  not  held  by  many  philos- 
ophers of  rank  today,  although  it  still  sur- 
vives in  the  form  of  a  working  hypothesis  in 
certain  branches  of  science,  and  as  a  rather 
common  point  of  view  of  large  numbers  of 
people  who  have  been  touched  by  the  influence 
of  popularized  physical  and  biological  science. 
It  will  be  well,  therefore,  to  outline  briefly  its 
salient  features,  and  to  examine  its  basis 
and  implications  somewhat  carefully. 

I 

Mind  as  Materialism  appears  in  the  history 

matter,  ^^  phllosophy  iu  scvcral  distinguish- 

[57] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

able  forms.  Only  two  of  these,  however, 
need  detain  us  here.  In  its  most  thorough- 
going form  materialism  completely  identi- 
fies matter  and  mind,  asserting  that  mind  is 
simply  a  particular  mode  or  manifestation  of 
matter,  like  light,  heat  or  electricity.  This 
type  of  materialism  is  sometimes  called  equa- 
tive  materialism,  because  the  two  entities, 
mind  and  matter,  usually  thought  of  as 
radically  distinct  kinds  of  reality,  are  as- 
serted to  be  identical.  One  of  the  best- 
known  exponents  of  this  view  is  the  English 
philosopher  Hobbes,  who  held  mind  to  be  a 
'^refined  body,  or  a  movement  in  certain 
parts  of  the  body,"  and  who  defined  psychol- 
ogy outrightly  as  the  doctrine  of  motion.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  make  anything  out  of  this 
theory.  Perhaps  the  best  answer  to  it  is 
the  answer  of  Paulsen:  "The  proposition. 
Thoughts  are  in  reality  nothing  but  move- 
ments in  the  brain,  feelings  are  nothing  but 
bodily  processes  in  the  vaso-motor  system, 
is   absolutely  irrefutable;    not   because  it  is 

»  Cf.  Hobbes,  Human  Nature,  and  Falckenberg,  History  of  Modem 
Philosophy,  p.  72  ff .  The  best  history  of  materiaUsm  is  Lange,  History 
of  Materialism.  See  also  the  standard  histories  of  philosophy,  such 
as  Uberweg,  Hoffding,  Erdmann,  Windelband  or  Weber. 

[58] 


MATERIALISM   AND    IDEALISM 

true,  however,  but  because  it  is  meaningless. 
The  absurd  has  this  advantage  in  common 
with  truth,  that  it  cannot  be  refuted.  To 
say  that  thought  is  at  bottom  nothing  but  a 
movement  is  about  the  same  as  to  say  that 
iron  is  at  bottom  nothing  but  wood.  No 
argument  avails  here.  All  that  can  be  said 
is  this:  I  understand  by  a  thought,  a  thought 
and  not  a  movement  of  brain  molecules; 
and  similarly,  I  designate  by  the  words  anger 
and  fear,  anger  and  fear  themselves  and  not 
a  contraction  or  dilation  of  blood-vessels. 
Thought  is  not  motion,  but  thought.  "^ 
Mind  as  A  sccoud  aud  somewhat  different 

the  effect  . 

of  matter.  form  of  materialism  recognizes  con- 
sciousness as  a  form  of  reality  distinct  from 
matter,  but  makes  it  dependent  for  its  exist- 
ence and  continuance  upon  the  properties 
and  activities  of  matter.  This  form  has 
sometimes  been  called  causal  materialism, 
since  it  asserts  that  matter  is  the  cause  of 
mind.  Materialism  of  this  type  is  extremely 
familiar  to  us  through  current  psychological 
literature,  in  which  the  hypothesis  that  brain 
events   universally   condition   mental   events 

» Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  82. 
[591 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

has  been  so  thoroughly  domesticated  as  to 
appear  to  many  almost  axiomatic.  This  view- 
has  also  received  a  wide  circulation  through 
popular  science  which  has  accustomed  us  to 
think  of  the  mind  as  occupying  a  subordinate 
place  in  the  universe,  existing  in  it  as  a  temxpo- 
rary  phenomenon  only,  and  destined  to  dis- 
appear when  the  physical  conditions  making 
it  possible  are  no  longer  realized.  Mind  here 
has  a  certain  grade  of  reality,  but  it  is  not  an 
ultimate  form  of  existence.  Ultimate  reality 
exists  in  the  forms  of  matter  and  physical 
energy.  These,  as  the  irreducible  forms  in 
which  reality  expresses  itself,  are  indestructi- 
ble, enduring,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  as 
long  as  the  universe  itself  endures.  But  the 
existence  of  mind  is  highly  precarious.  Man, 
as  evolutionary  science  often  tells  us,  came 
upon  the  scene  comparatively  recently;  mil- 
Hons  of  years,  perhaps,  after  the  physical 
universe  had  arrived  at  its  present  stage  of 
completeness.  So  also  man  will  eventually 
disappear,  but  this  scenic  universe,  in  which 
he  has  found  a  temporary  home,  will  continue 
unaltered  in  its  essence  after  the  last  vestiges 
of  Hfe  and  mind  have  been  destroyed,  and 

[60] 


MATERIALISM   AND   IDEALISM 


man,  once  esteemed  the  last  term  and  the 
consummate  product  of  creation,  "  hes  dream- 
less in  the  dust." 

II 

^ .,. .      ,         Now   while   the   materialistic    ac- 

Cnticism  or 

tnateriausm.  ^ouut  of  thc  universc  Is  uot  lacklug 
in  a  certain  grandeur  of  outline,  I  shall  main- 
tain that,  regarded  from  a  metaphysical 
point  of  view,  it  is  strictly  untenable,  and 
even  unthinkable.  To  show  this  we  must  give 
close  attention  to  some  fundamental  consider- 
ations, which,  while  extremely  elementary, 
are  so  far-reaching  in  their  consequences  for 
our  theory  of  reality  as  to  deserve  the  most 
careful  consideration. 

Materialism  is  often  said  to  have  received 
its  death  blow  at  the  hands  of  Kant,  although, 
as  everybody  knows,  damaging  criticism  had 
been  passed  upon  the  theory  long  before  the 
time  of  the  illustrious  Konigsberg  philosopher. 
The  theories  of  Kant  are,  however,  of  very 
great  historical  importance,  and  cannot  safely 
be  neglected  by  anyone  who  wishes  to  under- 
stand the  main  historical  stages  through  which 
modern  metaphysics  has  passed,  and  by  which 

[61] 


THE   PHOBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

idealism  gained  its  present  ascendency.  We 
shall,  however,  do  well,  in  our  criticism  of  the 
fundamental  thesis  of  materialism,  to  make 
a  beginning  with  certain  considerations  first 
prominently  urged  by  Berkeley,  whom  many 
regard  as  the  first  and  the  greatest  of  mod- 
ern idealists.  1 
The  nature         Thc  fundamental  dogma  of  mate- 

of  matter;  ,  .  ..  . 

primary  and  rialism  IS  that  uothmg  really  exists 
qualities.  but  uiattcr,  and  that  thought,  feel- 
ing, emotion,  consciousness  of  any  kind,  in 
fact,  is  nothing  but  a  phase  or  an  effect  of 
matter.  But  let  us  take  a  piece  of  matter, 
some  physical  object,  as  we  say,  and  examine 
it  with  a  view  to  seeing  what  it  really  is. 
The  analysis  of  a  physical  object,  such  as  a 
piece  of  lump  sugar,  will  reveal  that  it  is  a 
combination  of  attributes  or  properties  such 
as  whiteness,  hardness,  sweetness,  and  the 
like.  With  a  little  further  thought  we  dis- 
cover that  these  so-called  qualities  of  the 
object  are  also  states  of  the  subject  who  per- 
ceives them,  in  some  way.     I  feel  or  experience 

1  The  chief  writings  of  Berkeley  are  the  Treatise  on  the  Principles 
of  Human  Knowledge,  and  Three  Dialogues  between  Hylas  and 
Philonous.  See  also  A.  C.  Fraser,  Berkeley,  and  the  histories  of 
philosophy,  especially  Hoffding,  Falckenberg  and  Calkins. 

[62] 


MATERIALISM   AND   IDEALISM 

the  whiteness,  the  hardness,  the  sweetness, 
etc.  These  quahties  exist  as  phases  or  nuances 
of  my  experience.  Now  let  us  ask  ourselves 
the  question,  Does  the  whiteness  exist  at  all 
when  it  does  not  enter  into  someone's  experi- 
ence? Or,  Does  the  sweetness  exist  when  no 
one  tastes  the  sweetness?  It  seems  clear  that 
the  answer  must  be  negative.  The  most  we 
can  say  is  that  the  qualities  in  question  are 
produced  by  causes  which  are  entirely  differ- 
ent from  the  qualities  themselves.  So  color 
might  be  said  to  be  produced  in  the  mind  by 
undulations  of  luminiferous  ether.  If  the 
further  question  should  be  asked  whether 
there  would  be  any  color  in  the  absence  of 
sensitively  organized  creatures,  like  man, 
whether,  in  other  words,  the  ethereal  vibra- 
tions are  themselves  colored,  the  answer 
would  unquestionably  be  negative.  Vibra- 
tions are  no  more  colors  than  a  slammed 
door  is  the  same  as  the  feeling  of  irritation 
which  it  produces  in  the  bystander.  The 
slammed  door  is  one  thing  and  the  irritation 
is  an  entirely  different  thing.  Vibrations  are 
no  more  colored  than  a  slammed  door  can  be 
said  to  be  angry.     What  is  true  of  colors,  is 

[63] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

true  of  sounds,  odors,  tastes.  These  so-called 
qualities  of  objects  have  no  existence  apart 
from  some  mind  which  experiences  them. 
Their  existence  apart  from  minds  which 
apprehend  them  is  absolutely  unintelligible 
and  unmeaning. 

Recognizing  the  force  of  this  criticism, 
philosophers  long  ago  made  a  certain  distinc- 
tion meant  to  rescue  the  theory  of  the  inde- 
pendent existence  of  the  physical  world,  the 
distinction  between  the  so-called  primary  and 
the  secondary  properties  of  matter.  The 
secondary  qualities,  such  as  colors,  sounds, 
tastes,  odors,  etc.,  are  admitted  not  to  exist 
in  the  things  themselves,  but  only  in  the 
minds  which  perceive  them.  Furthermore, 
the  properties  in  things  which  produce  these 
sensations  are  admitted  to  be  totally  unlike 
the  sensations  which  they  produce.  But 
there  exist,  it  is  said,  in  addition  to  these 
secondary  or  accidental  qualities,  certain 
primary  or  essential  qualities  which  can  in  no 
sense  be  separated  from  the  objects  themselves. 
Were  all  minds  to  disappear  from  the  universe, 
these  qualities  would  still  remain.  Things 
might  cease  to  be  red  or  blue,  bitter  or  sweet, 

[64] 


MATERIALISM   AND   IDEALISM 

sonorous  or  fragrant,  but  they  could  by  no 
possibility  cease  to  occupy  space,  be  rough 
or  smooth,  round  or  square,  solid  or  fluid. 
The  object,  strictly  speaking,  is  just  the 
combination  of  these  primary  properties. 

It  will  be  sufiicient  to  say  here  that  the 
distinction  between  primary  and  secondary 
qualities  has  often  been  shown  to  be  an  unten- 
able one.  In  the  first  place,  the  same  argu- 
ment which  is  advanced  against  the  objective 
existence  of  secondary  qualities,  namely  that 
they  imply  sense  organs  and  a  nervous  and 
mental  organization  of  a  certain  type,  applies 
to  the  primary  qualities  just  as  fully  as  to 
the  secondary.  Impenetrability,  for  example, 
is  unmeaning  apart  from  the  tactual  and 
muscular  senses  through  which  resistance  is 
felt;  geometrical  form  is  imperceptible  except 
through  the  senses  of  sight  and  touch,  and 
so  on  through  the  entire  list.  In  the  second 
place,  experience  never  gives  us  a  primary 
quality  by  itself,  but  always  in  combination 
with  secondary  ones.  Thus  we  never  get 
color  except  as  spread  out  over  a  surface,  and, 
vice  versa,  we  never  get  extension  that  is  not 
colored.  An  object  which  is  nothing  but  a 
6  [65] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

combination  of  primary  qualities  is  a  fiction 
to  which  nothing  whatever  corresponds  in 
our  experience. 

If  the  objection  is  here  made  that  matter 
must  exist  as  the  cause  of  our  experiences, 
ideahsm  answers  that  matter  thus  becomes 
an  object  of  mental  inference,  and  is,  as  such, 
still  an  "idea,"  to  use  Berkeley's  term,  an 
object  of  consciousness.  As  Miss  Calkins 
urges,  "inferred  objects  must  be  known  ob- 
jects, objects  present  to  the  mind,  and  can- 
not therefore  be  possessed  of  independent 
existence."^ 

The  relational  ^^^ut^  arrivcd  at  idcallsm  by  a 
features        somcwhat  different   route,   and  one 

or  expe-  ' 

nence.  ^£  j^-g  egggji^ial  coutributious  to  the 

discussion  is  of  first-rate  interest  for  our  pres- 
ent problem.  We  defined  an  object  awhile 
ago  as  a  combination  of  certain  qualities  or 
properties.  The  object,  however,  contains 
something  more  than  a  number  of  qualities 

» Persistent  Problems  of  Philosophy,  p.  130.  See  also  pp.  175  S., 
198  fF.,  366  fif. 

2  For  Kant's  theory  of  knowledge  see  Kant,  Critique  of  Pure  Reason, 
or  Watson,  Selections  from  Kant.  For  discussions  of  Kant,  E.  Caird, 
The  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant;  W.  Wallace,  Kant;  Paulsen,  Kant; 
Morris,  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason;  Schurman,  articles  in  the 
Philosophical  Review  for  1898  and  1900. 

[66] 


MATERIALISM   AND   IDEALISM 

or  properties.  It  contains,  namely,  certain 
relations  among  the  qualities  or  properties. 
When  we  say  that  the  object  is  of  such  and 
such  a  shape,  for  example,  we  mean  that  the 
parts  of  the  object  stand  in  such  and  such 
spatial  relations  to  each  other.  Or  if  we  say 
that  lump  sugar  is  not  so  white  as  chalk,  or 
that  it  is  not  so  heavy  as  a  piece  of  iron  of 
equal  size,  we  have  called  attention  to  rela- 
tions of  degree  between  qualities  of  the  sugar 
and  similar  qualities  of  the  other  substances 
mentioned.  And  if  we  say  that  the  small 
particles  which  make  up  the  lump  of  sugar 
are  held  together  by  the  law  of  attraction, 
or  that  the  sight  of  the  sugar  makes  one's 
mouth  water,  we  are  asserting  causal  relations 
among  the  particles  of  sugar,  or  between  the 
sight  of  the  sugar  and  the  secretion  of  saliva. 
Now  Kant  held  that,  while  the  qualities  of 
an  object  are  furnished  in  some  way  by  the 
object  itself,  the  relations  among  these  quali- 
ties, such  as  spatial  and  temporal  relations, 
causal  relations,  relations  of  degree,  etc.,  are 
furnished  by  the  mind.  Relations  are  "the 
work  of  the  mind."  Things  and  the  mind 
are   both   essential,    therefore,    according   to 

[67] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

Kant,  in  the  origination  of  experience  as  we 
at  present  have  it. 

The  question  as  to  what  the  world  is  in 
itself,  that  is,  before  the  mind  has  imposed 
its  relations  upon  it,  is  of  course  absolutely 
unanswerable,  because  we  never  have  knowl- 
edge that  does  not  contain  mental  relations. 
We  see  objects  in  the  world  arranged  in  rela- 
tions of  time,  space,  cause  and  effect,  sub- 
stance and  attribute,  degree,  etc.,  as  inevitably 
as  a  man  who  wears  blue  spectacles  sees 
things  blue.  These  mental  forms  and  rela- 
tions are  just  the  way  the  mind  sees  things, 
and  we  cannot  know  things  except  under 
these  relations  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
is  the  very  nature  of  the  mind  to  see  objects 
and  phenomena  under  these  relations. 
Further  '^^^  thcorics  of  both  Berkeley  and 

remarks.  Xaut  had  ccrtaiu  inadequate  fea- 
tures which  later  psychology  and  epistemology 
have  done  much  to  correct.  It  would  take 
us  too  far  afield  to  indicate  and  discuss  these 
inadequacies  at  any  length,  but  they  may  be 
briefly  suggested.  Berkeley's  weakness  lay 
chiefly  in  omitting  to  notice  the  purposive 
features  of  our  experience,  in  representing  the 

[681 


MATERIALISM   AND   IDEALISM 

mind  as  a  sort  of  receptacle  which  impartially 
assimilated  materials  presented  to  it.  But 
modern  psychology  has  had  much  to  say  about 
the  selective  and  purposive  aspects  of  the 
mind's  activity,  shown  in  selective  attention, 
interest,  and  similar  phenomena.  The  mind 
does  not  impartially  receive  any  materials 
which  may  be  presented  to  it,  but  is  highly 
selective  and  exclusive  in  its  activities,  reveal- 
ing at  every  step  current  interests  and  partiali- 
ties. This  fact  only  sheds  additional  light  on 
the  topic  of  the  subjectivity  of  all  our  knowl- 
edge, and  upon  the  fact  that  both  our  common 
knowledge  and  our  science  are  largely  built 
up  about  our  human  interests  and  needs, 
reflecting  these  interests  and  needs  at  every 
point  and  in  every  feature. 

Kant's  error,  which  was  also  the  error  of 
Hume  before  him,  lay  in  the  artificial  separa- 
tion of  "matter"  and  "form,"  the  sensory 
and  the  intellectual  factors  in  cognition,  a 
distinction  which  has  been  decidedly  toned 
down,  if  not  entirely  destroyed,  by  the  progress 
of  more  recent  psychology  and  epistemology. 
Sensations  do  not  come  as  isolated,  uncom- 
pounded  qualities  which  are  united  into  wholes 

[69] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

by  a  subsequent  process  of  mental  synthesis. 
Experience  is,  in  its  most  primitive  form, 
relationaL  At  any  rate,  relations  are  not 
stored,  ready-made,  in  the  mind,  to  be  sub- 
sequently imposed  upon  the  "raw  material 
of  sensation"  in  the  external  and  mechanical 
way  which  Kant's  too  square-cut  terminology 
strongly  suggested.^ 

These  qualifications  do  not,  however,  affect 
the  very  solid  results  at  which  Berkeley  and 
Kant  arrived,  results  which  seem  to  me 
unavoidable  and  irrefutable.  So  far  from 
matter's  being  the  only  reality,  it  has  no 
independent  reality  at  all.  To  quote  the 
eloquent  words  of  Walter  Pater:  "At  first  sight 
experience  seems  to  bury  us  under  a  flood  of 
external  objects,  pressing  upon  us  with  a 
sharp  and  importunate  reality;  calling  us  out 
of  ourselves  in  a  thousand  forms  of  action. 
But  when  reflection  begins  to  act  upon  those 
objects  they  are  dissipated  under  its  influence; 
the  cohesive  force  seems  suspended  like  a 
trick  of  magic;  each  object  is  loosed  into  a 

1  One  of  the  most  recent  technical  discussions  of  the  Kantian 
doctrine  of  form  and  matter  in  knowledge  is  Gross,  Form  and  Materie 
des  Erkennens,  Leipzig,  1910. 

[70] 


MATERIALISM   AND    IDEALISM 

group  of  impressions — color,  odor,  texture — 
in  the  mind  of  the  observer.  ^  Physical  objects 
have  no  existence  whatever  apart  from  con- 
scious experience:  what  exists  is  minds  and 
their  experiences,  and  nothing  exists  which 
cannot  be  referred  to,  or  explained  by,  minds 
and  their  experiences. 
Extra-  The  result  reached  may  seem  to 

experiential 

objects.  many  so  novel  and  paradoxical  as 
hardly  to  admit  of  serious  consideration.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  firmly  established  beliefs 
of  science,  it  will  be  said,  that  the  evolution 
of  the  physical  universe  antedated  the  evolu- 
tion of  life  and  mind,  and  that  the  physical 
universe  existed  long  before  man  had  any 
knowledge  of  its  existence;  furthermore,  it  is 
clear  that  new  parts  of  the  physical  universe, 
like  planets  and  other  heavenly  bodies,  are 
constantly  being  discovered.  Does  idealism 
mean  to  suggest  that  the  physical  universe 
did  not  exist  before  man  came  upon  the  scene, 
or  that  undiscovered  planets  and  objects  like 
the  central  parts  of  the  earth,  or  a  living  man's 
brain,  which  have  never  been  perceived,  do 
not  exist  .^ 

1  The  Renaissance,  pp.  247-48. 

[71] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 


Finite  These  questions,  which  may  seem 

and  the  somewhat  disconcerting  at  first,  are 
experience;  casily  dcalt  with  if  we  make  a  certain 
the  object  distinction  which  is  of  leading  impor- 
thought.  tance  for  our  whole  view  of  the  uni- 
verse. This  is  the  distinction  between  man's 
experience  and  experience  as  such,  between 
finite  experiences  and  absolute  experience. 
We,  indeed,  do  not  create  the  universe  when 
we  come  to  know  it.  Science  is  right:  we 
merely  discover  it,  and  there  are  doubtless 
many  objects  of  which  we  have  no  knowledge 
whatever.  And  yet  we  can  give  no  intelligible 
account  of  them,  as  we  have  seen,  except  by 
reference  to  experience.  It  follows,  therefore, 
that  we  must  assume,  in  addition  to  an 
objectively  existing  universe,  the  existence  of 
a  mind  or  minds  other  than  human,  for  which 
the  universe  exists,  and  in  terms  of  whose 
experience  alone  it  can  be  explained.  Berke- 
ley himself  arrived  at  this  momentous  conclu- 
sion. What  becomes  of  objects,  it  might  be 
asked,  like  the  objects  in  a  room,  when  we  leave 
the  room  and  no  longer  perceive  them.?  Do 
they  continue  to  exist,  or  are  they  blotted  out? 
They  continue  to  exist,   said  Berkeley,   but 

[721 


MATERIALISM   AND    IDEALISM 

they  exist  in  the  mind  of  God.  A  recent 
writer,  Dr.  Hastings  Rashdall,  has  re-stated 
this  same  point  with  particular  clearness: 
*' Matter  cannot  intelligibly  be  supposed  to 
exist  apart  from  Mind;  and  yet  it  clearly  does 
not  exist  merely  for  our  minds.  Each  of  us 
knows  only  one  little  bit  of  the  Universe:  all 
of  us  together  do  not  know  the  whole.  If  the 
whole  is  to  exist  at  all,  there  must  be  some 
one  mind  which  knows  the  whole.  The  mind 
which  is  necessary  to  the  very  existence  of  the 
Universe  is  the  mind  that  we  call  God."^ 

Thus  does  idealistic  philosophy  repeat  the 
classical  thought  of  Hebrew  wisdom  that  all 
things  that  live  and  have  being,  live  and  have 
their  being  in  God.  And  thus  does  philosophy 
lend  serious  import  to  the  apparently  super- 
ficial question  sometimes  asked.  Could  the 
universe  continue  to  exist  if  God  should  with- 
draw from  it?  It  assuredly  could  not  if,  as  I 
have  urged,  it  exists  only  as  the  object  of  God's 
thought.  As  Tennyson  says  in  the  Ancient 
Sage: 

"  If  the  Nameless  should  withdraw  from  all 
Thy  frailty  counts  most  real,  all  thy  world 
Might  vanish  like  thy  shadow  in  the  dark." 

I  Philosophy  and  Religion,  p.  17. 
[73] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

Two  important  questions  naturally  arise  at 
this  point.  The  statement  has  just  been  made 
that,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  universe  is 
evidently  vastly  more  inclusive  and  complete 
than  our  fragmentary  knowledge  of  it,  we 
have  to  assume  the  existence  of  a  mind  or 
minds  for  which  the  universe  is  eternally 
present.  It  is  evident  that  all  our  theory 
absolutely  calls  for  is  the  presence  of  mind 
in  the  universe.  Whether  mind  exists  in  the 
form  of  one  all-inclusive  Mind,  or  whether 
mind  specifies  itself,  and  appears  in  the  form  of 
a  society  of  minds,  or  selves,  is  a  question 
which  can  be  answered  only  on  the  basis  of 
considerations  of  a  special  kind,  which  we 
have  not  yet  discussed.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  go  into  this  interesting  question  in  detail, 
but  one  may  say  that  the  hypothesis  of  the 
unity  of  the  Universal  Mind  seems  on  the 
whole  to  be  the  more  plausible  when  one  con- 
siders the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  physical 
world  shown  in  the  universality  of  natural  law, 
in  the  similar  physical  and  chemical  constitu- 
tion of  distantly  separated  parts  of  the  physi- 
cal universe,  and  in  the  community  of  minds, 
the  solidarity  of  our  spiritual  and  social  life, 

[741 


MATERIALISM   AND    IDEALISM 

without  which  social  cooperation  would  be- 
come entirely  impossible.     But  we  cannot  pur- 
sue this  subject  further  here. 
Is  God  There  is   another   question,   how- 

"T'^  ever,   a   solution   of   which   is   more 

contem-  ' 

piative?  pressing,  and  which  we  shall  have  to 
face  and  discuss  somewhat  fully.  The  theory 
of  God's  nature  suggested  by  the  metaphysical 
considerations  adduced  above  is  that  God  is 
the  universal  intelligence  to  which  the  whole 
of  reality  is  eternally  present.  Now  the 
question  arises,  Are  we  to  interpret  God's 
nature  exclusively  in  terms  of  intelligence, 
after  the  fashion  of  Aristotle,  or  must  we  also 
think  of  Him  in  terms  of  will?  Is  omnipo- 
tence as  genuine  an  aspect  of  the  divine  nature 
as  omniscience?  This  question,  together  with 
other  collateral  issues,  will  be  most  naturally 
discussed  in  connection  with  the  subject  of 
causation  and  law  which  form  the  topic  of  our 
next  section. 

Literature 

Berkeley,  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,  and  Three 
Dialogues  between  Hylas  and  Pliilonous. 

Fiske,  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Part  III,  Chap- 
ter IV. 

[75] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

Eraser,  Philosophy  of  Theism,  Lecture  HI. 

Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  Book  I. 

Kant,  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  or  Watson,  Selections 

from  Kant. 
Kiilpe,  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  §§  16-19. 
Lange,  A  History  of  Materialism. 
Rashdall,  Philosophy  and  Religion,  Lecture  I. 
Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  Book  II,  Chapter 

I,  Book  III,  Chapter  II. 


[76] 


IV 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  VIEW  OF  NATURE: 
MECHANISM  AND  TELEOLOGY 


IV 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  VIEW  OF  NATURE: 
MECHANISM  AND  TELEOLOGY 

I 

inadequa-  In  thc  preceding  section  we  were 

preceding       Icd,  by  a  series  of  strictly  philosoph- 

discussion:         .       ■,  .  ■,  ,  .  .        ,  i  i        • 

the  pur-         ical  considerations,  to  the  conclusion 
pectsof         that  the  theory  of  an  independently 

experience.  .       .  i  •        i  i  •      ■ 

existing  physical  order  is  inconceiva- 
ble, and  that  what  we  call  matter  is  simply  a 
name  for  a  characteristic  aspect  of  our  expe- 
rience as  this  is  given  us  in  perception.  In 
the  second  place,  the  undeniable  fact  that 
the  physical  universe  is  infinitely  greater  than 
our  human  knowledge  of  it  pointed  unmis- 
takably to  the  hypothesis  of  an  Absolute 
Experience  or  Mind  for  whose  intelligence  the 
whole  universe  exists.  The  universe  is  the 
object  of  God's  thought. 

There  is,  however,  a  certain  inadequacy  in 
this  way  of  formulating  the  matter  which 
cannot  have  escaped  the  reader  familiar  with 
the  main  drifts  of  modern  psychology  and 
philosophy.     We    have    already    noticed,    in 

[79] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

connection  with  Berkeley's  theories,  a  rather 
serious  weakness  in  this  philosopher's  view  of 
the  relation  of  the  mind  to  its  objects.  Our 
criticism  of  Berkeley  was  to  the  effect  that 
he  represented  the  mind  too  much  as  a  sort 
of  receptacle  which  absorbs,  as  it  were,  or 
passively  assimilates,  any  materials  which 
may  happen  to  be  presented  to  it.  Put  in 
psychological  terms,  Berkeley's  error  lay  in 
the  too  exclusive  emphasis  upon  the  cognitive 
or  knowing  aspects  of  our  experience,  and  in 
the  failure  to  recognize  with  sufficient  dis- 
tinctness the  purposive  and  active  aspects  of 
consciousness  which  characterize  it  through- 
out. But,  as  every  one  knows,  the  old  hard 
and  fast  distinction  between  thought  and  will 
as  two  independently  existing  functions,  which 
has  played  such  a  large  part  in  the  psycho- 
logical discussions  of  the  past,  has  been  de- 
cidedly obscured,  if  not  entirely  obliterated, 
by  the  progress  of  psychology.  Perception  and 
thought,  in  so  far  as  they  are  attentively 
controlled  processes,  are  just  as  truly  illustra- 
tions of  mental  activity  or  will  as  are  desire  and 
choice;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  such  processes 
as  desire  and  choice  involve  many  ideational 

[80] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

factors  whose  existence  has  often  escaped  our 
introspective  observation.  *'Conative  devel- 
opment," to  use  the  words  of  Professor  Stout, 
"is  inseparably  connected  with  cognitive  devel- 
opment." In  fact,  "conation  and  cognition 
are  simply  different  aspects  of  one  and  the 
same  process. "^  Wundt  also  has  stated  the 
case  forcefully:  "So  far  as  we  know  them 
from  introspection  and  from  external  percep- 
tion, consciousness  and  will  are  inseparably 
united.  Will  is  not  something  which  some- 
times accrues  to  consciousness  and  is  some- 
times lacking:  it  is  an  integral  property  of 
consciousness. "2 

The  same  point  can  be  illustrated  in  a  some- 
what different  way.  There  are  conceivably 
always  two  questions  which  we  can  ask  in  the 
presence  of,  say,  a  physical  object.  The  first 
is.  What  is  the  object!^ — i.  e.,  what  is  its  struc- 
ture? The  second  is.  What  relation  has  it  to 
my  interests  and  purposes?     Now,  we  prob- 

1  Manual  of  Psychology,  p.  581.  Stout's  whole  treatment  of  psy- 
chology is  an  admirable  illustration  of  the  point  urged  here.  But  all 
the  more  recent  books  on  psychology,  such  as  those  of  James,  Wundt, 
Kulpe,  Sully,  Judd,  Angell,  Titchener  and  Royce,  convey  more  or  less 
clearly  the  idea  of  the  concrete  connection  between  the  voluntary 
and  the  cognitive  aspects  of  consciousness. 

2  Ethics,  Part  III,  p.  7. 

7  [81] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

ably  never  ask  the  first  question  without  also 
asking  the  second.  In  fact,  it  is  a  serious 
question  whether  there  is  any  such  thing  as 
the  abstract  "nature"  of  an  object.  If  there 
is,  it  certainly  does  not  form  any  part  of  our 
ordinary  experience  and  our  life.  No  object 
can  ever  enter  importantly  into  our  experience 
except  as  it  is  seen  to  have  some  bearing  upon 
our  current  interests  or  purposes,  either  fur- 
thering them  or  thwarting  them.  This  is 
of  course  the  valuable  truth  which  has  been  so 
strongly  urged  by  modern  voluntaristic  psy- 
chology and  philosophy,  by  pragmatism  and 
similar  phenomena. 

If  the  above  facts  are  true,  it  will  likely 
prove  extremely  difficult  to  interpret  the 
world  in  terms  of  an  absolute  experience 
without  recognizing  in  this  experience  those 
purposive  and  active  aspects  which  form  such 
a  striking  part  of  our  own  finite  experience. 
Indeed,  if  we  had  reason  for  believing  God's 
experience  to  be  radically  different  from  our 
own,  I  do  not  see  how  we  could  stop  short  of 
absolute  agnosticism  on  the  whole  subject 
of  God's  nature,  for  it  is  evidently  impossible 
to  understand  any  form  of  experience  or  life 

[82] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

for  which  we  have  no  analogy  in  our  own 
experience.  This  is  a  fundamental  considera- 
tion which  shows  that  theology  must  always 
remain  to  an  important  extent  anthropomor- 
phic in  its  conception  of  God  and  the  world. ^ 
The  world  ^^    ^111    accordiugly    be    a    very 

^^^'^'  natural   hypothesis   that   the   world 

is  not  merely  the  object  of  God's  thought,  as 
if  God  were  an  impartial  spectator,  merely, 
of  a  world  whose  course  had  been  somehow 
independently  determined,  but  that  it  repre- 
sents also  in  a  very  real  and  important  sense 
the  expression  of  God's  active  and  purposive 
will. 

II 
I  shall  seek  to  support  this  conception  for 
which  we  have  such  good  psychological  war- 
rant by  reference  to  certain  conceptions 
which  have  played  an  enormously  large  part 
in  the  discussions  of  modern  science  and  in 
popular  religious  thought,  in  many  instances 
disturbing  the  latter  not  a  little.  I  have 
reference  here  to  two  notions,  mainly,  the 
notion  of  natural  causation  and  law,  and 
the  closely  related  conception  of  development 

1  Cf .  for  a  further  discussion  of  this  point.  Section  VIII,  below. 
[83] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 

or  evolution.  The  plan  of  the  present  book 
precludes  a  very  extended  or  technical  treat- 
ment of  these  extremely  important  topics, 
interesting  as  such  a  discussion  might  prove 
to  be;  yet  no  attempt  to  estimate  the  place 
of  religion  in  modern  intellectual  life  would 
be  complete  without  some  reference  to  them. 
Even  a  summary  discussion  of  these  funda- 
mental scientific  notions  will,  I  hope,  reveal 
the  fact  that  they  are  not  in  any  respect 
incompatible  with  a  humanistic  and  ethical 
interpretation  of  the  world,  but  that  they  are, 
on  the  contrarj^  absolutely  indispensable, 
not  only  for  purposes  of  scientific  description 
and  explanation,  but  for  purposes  of  philo- 
sophical and  religious  interpretation  as  well, 
po  uiar  ^^^  shall  do  well  to  begin  with  the 

meanings       notlou  of  causatlou  aud  natural  law. 

of  causa- 

*'**'^'  One  of  the  most  common  ways  in 

which  we  are  accustomed  to  view  the  world 
is  as  the  embodiment  of  force  or  energy. 
The  universe  is  not  a  collection  of  quiescent 
substances  or  bodies;  bodies  are  mutable: 
the  world  is  the  scene  of  unceasing  change. 
Now  the  common  man  and  the  scientist  alike 
tend  to  connect  the  changes  in  the  world  in 

[84] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

causal  series  in  such  a  way  that  any  event  in 
the  series  is  thought  of  as  being  somehow 
determined  by  antecedent  events  in  the  same 
series.  Every  event,  we  say,  has  a  cause. 
By  an  event's  being  determined  we  seem  to 
mean  that  it  could  not  help  occurring,  that 
its  occurrence  was  enforced.  And  if  the 
question  is  further  raised  why  the  event  could 
not  help  occurring,  the  reply  is  either  (1) 
that  the  event  is  brought  about  by  "natural 
law,"  or  (2)  that  it  is  produced  by  the  previous 
event  or  events  in  the  causal  series.  So  fire 
melts  wax,  and  it  does  so  either  because  there 
is  a  "natural  law"  in  virtue  of  which  it  does 
so,  or  because  fire  has  the  power  of  bringing 
this  particular  result  about. 

Two  characteristics  of  this  method  of 
explanation  of  an  event  need  here  to  be 
pointed  out.  One  is  the  association  of  the 
idea  of  force,  power,  or  causal  efficiency  with 
the  notions  of  natural  law  and  event.  The 
natural  law  or  the  event  brings  the  effect 
about  in  virtue  of  some  compulsory  force  or 
power  in  the  law  or  the  event.  The  second 
leading  characteristic  of  this  type  of  explana- 
tion is   that   the   explanation   is   always   by 

[85] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 


reference  to  certain  antecedent  events  or 
forces.  The  type  of  explanation  by  reference 
to  some  end  or  purpose  which  the  events  tend 
to  subserve  or  to  reahze  has  been  completely 
superseded  in  scientific  investigations  by 
explanation  of  the  mechanical  type  just 
described. 

Now  I  wish  to  maintain,  in  what 
of  causal  follows,  four  propositious.  In  the 
first  place,  there  is  no  force  or  power 
in  a  so-called  natural  law  to  bring  anything 
about.  Natural  law  is  simply  a  name  or 
a  formula  to  describe  the  particular  way 
in  which  things  happen.  It  is,  therefore, 
at  best  merely  descriptive  of  phenomenal 
sequences,  and  does  not  explain  anything 
whatsoever,  in  the  sense  of  telling  why  any- 
thing occurs. 

Second,  we  have  not  the  slightest  outward 
evidence  for  believing  that  there  exists  any 
force  or  power  in  an  external  event  to  bring 
any  other  event  about.  Here  again  we  can 
only  tell  what  particular  event  will  follow 
some  other  event.  Why  the  one  event  should 
follow  the  other  is  again  absolutely  unex- 
plained.    So    Hume,    who    first    in    modern 

[86] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

philosophy  challenged  the  traditional  idea 
of  causal  efficiency,  reduced  the  phenomenon 
of  causality  to  a  mere  subjective  expectation 
that  things  will  continue  to  happen  in  the 
future  as  we  have  observed  them  to  happen  in 
the  past.  The  particular  causal  sequences,  so- 
called,  in  nature  are  learned  entirely  through 
empirical  observation  of  these  sequences. 
Natural  science  has  of  course  largely  fol- 
lowed Hume  in  rejecting  as  a  useless  scientific 
conception  the  older  idea  of  causal  efficiency 
in  the  sense  of  a  productive  force  or  power 
of  compulsion  in  the  cause,  which  somehow 
slips  out  of  the  cause  and  brings  the  effect 
about.  Science  todaj^  is  content  to  describe 
how  events  happen;  it  does  not  pretend  to 
say  why  they  happen  as  they  do.  Ether 
waves  of  a  given  length  will  produce  red;  of 
another,  violet.  But  why  the  one  kind  of 
wave  should  produce  one  color  and  another 
kind  of  wave  another  is  a  question  no  sci- 
entist would  undertake  to  answer. 

Third.     If  we  are  right  in  the  asser- 

Source  of  , 

the  idea  of     tion  that  wc  do  not  derive  the  notion 
of  power  or  energy  from  the  observa- 
tion of  the  actual  sequences  which  we  observe 

[87] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 

in  the  physical  world,  the  question  naturally 
arises  as  to  the  source  from  which  we  do 
derive  this  idea.  The  answer  is,  From  our  own 
inner  life.  Nowhere  else  in  the  universe  do 
we  get  an  immediate,  first-hand  knowledge 
of  activity  or  power,  but  we  do  get  it  here. 
Perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  a  form  of 
self-activity  of  which  we  have  immediate 
and  direct  knowledge  is  a  process  of  method- 
ical thought  along,  say,  some  scientific  or 
political  topic.  Such  a  process  of  reflection 
involves  certain  processes  of  analysis  and 
combination  which  cannot  go  on  without 
the  exercise  of  active  attention  and  effort. 
That  the  process  in  question  really  involves 
self-activity  is  well  illustrated  by  imagining 
the  process  interrupted  by  a  sudden  twinge 
of  toothache  or  gout.  Here  I  at  once  become 
conscious  of  the  presence  of  an  experience 
which  is  evidently  not  due  to  my  own  pur- 
posive activity.  The  immediate  feeling  of 
activity  in  the  one  case  and  of  passivity  in 
the  other  is  so  unmistakable  as  not  to  leave 
us  in  doubt  as  to  our  being  genuine  sources  of 
energy  or  power. 

Nor  does  the  power  to  direct  my  thought 
[88] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

exhaust  itself  in  producing  the  course  of 
thought.  No,  my  thought  may  pass  imme- 
diately over  into  movements  of  my  tongue, 
and  may  produce  the  most  striking  physical 
results.  My  words  may  excite  a  mutiny, 
cause  men  to  "go  fetch  fire,  pluck  down 
benches,  pluck  down  forms,  windows,  any- 
thing."^ They  may  pass  into  movements  of 
my  hands  and  may  result  in  a  philosophical 
treatise,  or  a  political  tract,  which  may 
change  the  intellectual  or  the  political  map 
of  Europe. 

The  experience  of  power  is  of  course  gotten 
in  various  other  contexts,  but  these  contexts 
are,  all  of  them,  personal.  We  get  it  when 
we  hold  a  door  against  a  person  who  is  trying 
to  force  his  way  into  the  room;  or  when  we 
make  our  way  against  a  blinding  snow  storm, 
or  try  to  hold  our  own  against  an  opponent 
in  a  wrestling  match.  The  difference  between 
our  experience  in  observing  the  impact  of 
two  billiard  balls  and  our  experience  in  making 
our  way  against  a  storm  is  decisive  and  ulti- 
mate. In  the  first  case  we  get  nothing  except 
an  experience  of  sequence;  in  the  second  case 

>  Shakespeare,  Julius  Caesar,  Act  III,  Scene  2. 
[891 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

we  get  an  experience  of  causal  efficiency  or 
power.  When  afterwards  we  witness  events 
in  external  nature  which  we  have  often  seen 
arise  as  the  result  of  our  volitions,  it  is  but 
natural  that  we  should  in  imagination  transfer 
the  power  which  we  feel  to  exist  in  ourselves 
to  inanimate  objects,  when  they  appear  to 
give  rise  to  events  and  changes  in  the  world. 
To  quote  the  brilliant  Martineau:  "In  the 
apprehension  of  the  human  observer,  using 
his  most  human  faculty,  this  visible  world  is 
folded  round  and  steeped  in  a  sea  of  life, 
whence  enters  all  that  rises,  and  whither 
return  the  generations  that  pass  away.  .  .  . 
Doubtless,  it  is  an  ascription  to  nature,  on  the 
part  of  the  observer,  of  a  life  like  his  own; 
in  the  boundless  mirror  of  the  earth  and  sky, 
he  sees,  as  the  figures  of  events  flit  by,  the 
reflected  image  of  himself.  But  for  his  living 
spirit,  he  could  not  move;  and  but  for  a 
living  spirit,  they  could  not  move.  Just  as 
when,  standing  face  to  face  with  his  fellows, 
he  reads  the  glance  of  the  eye,  the  sudden 
start,  or  the  wringing  of  the  hands,  and 
refers  them  home  to  their  source  within  the 

viewless   soul   of   another;    so   with  dimmer 

[90] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

and  more  wondering  suspicion  does  he  dis- 
cern, behind  the  looks  and  movements  of 
nature,  a  Mind,  that  is  the  seat  of  every  power, 
and  the  spring  of  every  change.  You  may 
laugh  at  so  simple  a  philosophy;  but  how 
else  would  you  have  him  proceed?  Does  he 
not,  for  this  explanation,  go  straight  to  the 
only  cause  which  he  knows?  He  is  familiar 
with  power  in  himself  alone;  and  in  himself 
it  is  Will;  and  he  has  no  other  element  than 
will  to  be  charged  with  the  power  of  the 
world."i 
Inadequacy  I  wish  to  maintain,  in  the  fourth 

of  mechan- 
ical explana-     place,    that    the    whole    method    of 

tion;  expla- 
nation by        explaining  an  event  by  referring  it 

end  or 

purpose.  to  autcccdent  events  in  a  causal 
series  is  inadequate  and  one-sided,  and  that 
no  event  is  truly  explained  until  it  is  explained 
teleologically,  i.  e.,  until  the  event  is  viewed 
as  a  stage  or  step  in  the  realization  of  some 
end  or  purpose.  Mechanical  explanation, 
by  reference  to  antecedent  events,  is  one 
type  of  explanation,  and  it  doubtless  has  its 
rightful  place  and  justification;  but  there 
are  many  processes  in  the  world  whose  expla- 

>  Martineau,  The  Seat  of  Authority  in  Religion,  pp.  2-3. 

[911 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

nation  is  clearly  one-sided  and  lame  without 
the  employment  of  teleological  categories 
like  interests,  ends  and  purposes. 

To  illustrate  this,  let  us  take  the  most  per- 
fect type  of  a  mechanism  with  which  we  are 
acquainted,  a  machine.  Every  movement 
of  every  part  of  a  machine  could  be  com- 
pletely explained,  in  the  mechanical  sense 
of  explanation,  by  referring  it  to  some  previous 
movement.  But  would  any  part  of  the 
machine  ever  have  moved  if  there  had  not 
been  an  interest  on  the  part  of  some  person 
to  have  the  machine  move.f^  Or  take  a  whole 
network  of  mechanical  contrivances  like  a 
street  railway  system.  Could  it  be  reason- 
ably maintained  that  the  movements  of  the 
cars  were  completely  explained  by  tracing 
them  back  to  their  mechanical  antecedents 
in  the  shape  of  wheels,  wires,  electric  cur- 
rents, and  the  like.'*  Would  the  street  car 
system  ever  have  existed,  would  a  single 
wheel  ever  have  turned  on  its  axle,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  system  of  human  purposes  and 
interests  which  are  hourly  subserved  by  the 
street  car  system?  The  movements  of  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  typewriter  with  which  I  am 

[92] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 


writing  the  present  sentence  are  obviously  not 
fully  explained  by  referring  each  separate 
movement  to  some  previous  movement  or 
system  of  movements,  according  to  the  laws 
of  mechanics.  The  movements  of  the 
machine  are  inexplicable  unless  reference  is 
also  made  to  the  fact  that  they  are  necessary 
steps  or  stages  in  the  realization  of  my  present 
purpose,  the  purpose,  namely,  of  discussing 
the  relation  of  mechanism  and  design,  of 
writing  a  book  on  philosophy,  etc. 

So  with  events  in  my  own  life.  They  can 
doubtless  be  explained  by  enumerating  the 
various  biological  and  physiological  ante- 
cedents which  precede  the  events  in  the  order 
of  time,  and  the  various  physiological  and 
psychological  laws  according  to  which,  as  we 
say,  the  events  in  question  originate.  But 
no  event  or  occurrence  in  my  life  hke,  say, 
the  process  of  acquiring  an  education,  can 
be  explained  in  these  terms  exclusively.  The 
process  of  acquiring  an  education  becomes 
really  intelligible  only  when  I  treat  it  as  a 
moment  or  step  in  the  realization  of  some 
dominant  interest  or  purpose.  I  acquire  an 
education  in  order  to  carry  out  my  parents' 

[93] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

wishes,  or  to  gain  increased  social  recognition, 
or  to  become  a  more  useful  member  of  society, 
etc. 

The  scientific  method  of  studying  the  struc- 
ture of  reality  and  of  tracing  its  phenomenal 
sequences  is  not  inaptly  illustrated  by  the 
activity  of  the  proofreader  who  examines 
the  detailed  verbal  and  grammatical  struc- 
ture of  a  book  without  any  attention  to  the 
meaning  either  of  the  separate  sentences  or 
of  the  book  as  a  whole.  In  order  to  appre- 
ciate the  meaning  of  the  book,  the  reader, 
like  the  proofreader,  must  understand  the 
separate  words,  and  their  grammatical  con- 
nections, but  he  must  do  more  than  that: 
he  must  penetrate  beyond  these  to  their 
inner  meaning.  Science  may  be  said  to 
occupy  itself  primarily,  if  not  entirely,  with 
the  morphology,  the  grammar  of  nature, 
observing  its  phenomena  and  their  sequential 
connections;  philosophy,  as  the  science  of 
meaning,  uses  the  outward  facts  and  laws  of 
nature  as  the  key,  merely,  to  its  inner  signifi- 
cance.^ 

1  For  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  difference  between  the  ob- 
servation of  mere  phenomena  and  the  apprehension  of  their  inner 
meaning,  see  p.  218,  note  1. 

[94] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 


Law  and 


We   have   arrived   at   a   principle 

i.aw  ana  n       ■,  •  ,  £ 

purpose  not  oi  the  greatest  importance  tor  our 
weZtcom-  whole  vlcw  of  the  world  in  which 
concep-  we  Hvc,  the  principle,  namely,  that 
mechanical  explanation,  in  terms  of 
causation  and  natural  law,  and  teleological 
explanation,  in  terms  of  purpose  and  will,  are 
not  incompatible  kinds  of  explanation,  but 
that  they  rather  supplement  and  complete 
each  other.  In  fact,  the  only  way  to  realize 
the  various  ends  and  purposes  which  charac- 
terize us  is  to  take  advantage  of  those  natural 
causes  and  laws  of  nature  with  which  our 
experience  has  acquainted  us.  I  shall  have 
more  success  in  realizing  my  present  purpose 
of  writing  out  my  thoughts  if  I  make  use  of 
the  mechanical  device  known  as  a  typewriter 
than  if  I  depend  upon  writing  in  long  hand. 
Or,  to  take  another  illustration,  my  success  in 
making  a  flight  through  the  air  will  depend 
entirely  upon  my  success  in  utilizing  the 
natural  agencies  and  laws  at  my  command. 
They  can  be  utilized  and  I  can  fly.  But  I 
shall  not  succeed  in  carrying  out  my  purpose 
of  flying  if  I  deliberately  set  out  to  disregard 
the    various    physical    and    mechanical    laws 

[95] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

with  the  existence  of  which  my  experience 
has  acquainted  me. 

The  idea  that  the  reign  of  natural  law  is 
incompatible  with  the  realization  of  purpose 
is  a  very  curious  one,  and  it  is  nothing  short 
of  marvellous  how  it  has  ever  gained  the  wide 
circulation  which  it  appears  to  enjoy  among 
intelligent  people.  It  is  about  as  if  we  should 
maintain  that  because  hats  are  made  by 
machinery  (the  illustration,  I  think,  is  Pro- 
fessor James')  they  cannot  on  that  account 
fit  human  heads,  or  that  because  railway 
engines  are  propelled  by  steam  power,  and 
run  on  steel  rails,  they  cannot  get  anywhere! 
A  very  little  reflection,  however,  will  make 
it  sufficiently  evident  that  the  only  condition 
under  which  it  would  become  impossible  to 
make  hats  fit  heads,  and  to  make  trains  arrive 
at  their  intended  destinations,  is  for  natural 
law  to  become  inoperative,  so  that  steel 
would  cease  to  be  rigid,  water  cease  to  turn 
into  steam  when  heated,  etc.  Then  all  inter- 
ests alike  would  remain  unrealized,  all  pur- 
poses unfulfilled,  and  life  itself  become  a 
sheer  impossibility.^ 

1  The  more  one  reflects  on  the  matter  the  more  clearly  one  feels  that 
the  uniformity  of  nature  is  the  one  most  important  argument  for 

[96] 


Some  results 
of  the  tin- 
warranted 
opposition  of 
law  and  pur- 
pose. 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

III 

The  notion  that  natural  causation 
is  incompatible  with  purpose  has 
had  some  bizarre  applications  in 
philosophy  and  theology.  Human 
purposes  cannot  be  realized  because  the 
medium  for  their  realization,  the  human  will, 
is,  like  everything  else  in  the  universe,  subject 
to  natural  law.  The  human  will  is  not  free 
because,  forsooth,  nothing  in  the  universe  is 
free!  There  is  of  course  no  length  to  which 
men  will  not  go  when  they  have  once  lost 
their  feeling  for  reality.  Personality  is  here 
reduced  to  a  lower  rank  than  physical  objects. 
The  behavior  of  a  physical  object  is,  from  a 
physical  point  of  view,  determined  just  as 
much  by  its  own  nature  as  it  is  by  the  nature 
of  the  forces  which  influence  it.  A  stone,  for 
example,  weighing  ten  pounds  cannot  be 
moved  out  of  its  place  by  a  force  of  ten  ounces. 
But  a  man's  character  is  supposed  to  be  so 


theism  which  can  be  produced.  That  the  ground  is  firm  under  our 
feet,  that  water  slakes  and  fire  burns,  that  bodies  gravitate,  that  the 
sun  rises  and  sets  and  the  seasons  recur, — that  nature  is  without  shadow 
or  turning,  this  is  the  prime  condition  on  which  hfe  can  be  good. 

8  [97] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

thoroughly  the  victim  of  its  surroundings  as 
to  have  its  actions  determined  by  forces  lying 
entirely  outside  it.  A  very  little  attention 
to  the  facts  of  everyday  experience  would  of 
course  show  that  a  man's  action  is  at  least 
partly  determined  by  his  character,  whatever 
the  influences  of  his  surroundings  may  have 
to  do  with  it.  So  one  man  will,  for  a  consider- 
ation, waylay  another  and  cold-bloodedly 
murder  him.  A  man  of  different  character 
will,  if  offered  the  same  sum  of  money  for  the 
same  purpose,  turn  the  would-be  briber  over 
to  the  police. 

A  theological  result  of  a  very  mis- 
tureand        chlcvous  kiud  that  has  issued  from 

Ood.  .    . 

the  sharp  opposition  oi  the  notions 
of  law  and  purpose  is  a  sort  of  division  of  labor 
between  nature  and  God.  It  is  as  if  nature, 
operating  by  means  of  natural  law,  did  the 
bulk  of  the  world's  work,  while  God  is  reserved 
to  account  for  alleged  breaches  of  law,  inter- 
ruptions, and  interpositions  of  various  and 
sundry  kinds.  Now  it  is  evident  that  if 
God's  power  is  invoked  only  to  account  for 
breaks,  exceptions,  and  "things  science  cannot 
explain,"  the  scope  of  God's  power  will  be 

[98] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

constantly  restricted  as  the  range  of  scientific 
knowledge  is  extended,  and  these  homeless 
facts  are  one  by  one  brought  into  relation 
with  a  general  system  of  law  and  order. 
Modern  thought,  with  its  sublime  generaliza- 
tions, has  driven  us  to  the  belief  in  the  divine 
immanence  in  all  things.  The  sharp  dividing 
line  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural 
is  gradually  becoming  less  distinct,  and  will 
eventually  be  completedly  obliterated  with 
our  increasing  insight  and  optimism.  With 
theological  bankruptcy  staring  us  in  the  face, 
we  have  been  driven  to  the  recognition  of 
the  larger  truth  that  the  natural  roots  in  the 
supernatural,  and  that  the  supernatural,  in 
turn,  manifests  itself  in  the  ordinary,  everyday 
facts  and  forms  of  our  living  experience.  The 
laws  of  nature  are  not  so  many  obstacles  in 
the  path  of  the  divine  purpose:  they  are  the 
very  means  and  methods  by  which  this  purpose 
is  constantly  being  realized  and  fulfilled. ^ 

The  theory  of  evolution  or  devel- 

Evolution  r>  •    1  m   • 

both  a  opment    furnishes    a    striking    illus- 

causal  and  ,  »       i  p       •  i   •    i       i 

apurpo-        tration  of  the  confusion  which  has 

sive  process.  tip  i  i  •    • 

resulted  from  an  awkward  opposition 

I  Cf .  Bowne,  The  Immanence  of  God,  Essay  I. 
[99] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

of  the  mechanical  category  of  natural  causa- 
tion and  the  teleological  category  of  purpose. 
The  aspect  of  the  theory  of  evolution  which 
has  resulted  in  a  great  deal  of  religious  dis- 
turbance was  the  suggestion  which  was  often 
conveyed  by  writers  on  evolution  that  evolu- 
tion was  a  perfectly  "natural"  process, 
accounted  for  by  reference  to  such  purely 
natural  agencies  as  chance  variation,  natural 
selection  of  the  fittest,  etc.,  and  that  the 
older  theories  of  the  universe  as  the  illustration 
of  purposive  intelligence  were  accordingly 
disproved.  Nothing  could  be  more  unintelli- 
gent. The  only  possible  source  of  religious 
disturbance  was  the  conviction  on  the  part 
of  evolutionary  writers  that  the  universe 
arrived  at  its  present  state  of  completeness 
gradually,  through  the  accumulation  of  the 
effects  of  myriads  of  inconspicuous  processes 
and  changes.  It  is  of  course  difficult  to  take 
this  point  seriously.  What  possible  difference 
can  it  make  to  a  theistic  interpretation  of  the 
world  whether  we  regard  it  as  the  product 
of  a  comparatively  slow  or  a  comparatively 
rapid  process  of  creation.^  A  moment's 
reflection  would  of  course  show  that  the 
[100] 


MECHANISM   AND    TELEOLOGY 

process  of  creation  is  still  incomplete,  and 
that  we  have  no  very  conclusive  reason  for 
believing  that  it  will  ever  be  entirely  com- 
pleted.^ 

The  theory  of  evolution,  it  must  be  evident, 
is,  like  natural  law,  merely  an  account  of  the 
way  things  happen,  and  is,  so  far,  merely 
descriptive  in  character.  What  explanation 
there  is,  is  of  course  almost  altogether  of  the 
mechanical  type  discussed  above,  explanation, 
that  is,  by  reference  to  certain  mechanical 
agents  like  natural  selection,  heredity,  etc., 
which  are  supposed  to  bring  evolution  about. 
I  do  not  here  raise  the  question  whether 
science  is  justified  in  neglecting  teleological 

1  The  late  Professor  Bowne  has  illustrated  the  irrelevancy  of  the 
whole  discussion  by  the  following  story:  "An  Eastern  king  was  seated 
in  a  garden,  and  one  of  his  counselors  was  speaking  of  the  wonderful 
works  of  God.  'Show  me  a  sign,'  said  the  king,  'and  I  mil  believe.' 
'Here  are  four  acorns,'  said  the  counselor;  'will  your  majesty  plant 
them  in  the  ground,  and  then  stoop  down  for  a  moment  and  look  into 
this  clear  pool  of  water.^'  The  king  did  so.  'Now,'  said  the  other, 
'Look  up.'  The  king  looked  up  and  saw  four  oak  trees  where  he  had 
planted  the  acorns.  'Wonderful!"  he  exclaimed;  'this  is  indeed  the 
work  of  God.'  'How  long  were  you  looking  into  the  water.'''  asked 
the  coimselor.  'Only  a  second,' said  the  king.  ' Eighty  years  have 
passed  as  a  second,'  said  the  other.  The  king  looked  at  his  garments; 
they  were  threadbare.  He  looked  at  h  is  reflection  in  the  water;  he 
had  become  an  old  man.  '  There  is  no  miracle  here,  then,'  he  said 
angrily.  'Yes,'  said  the  other;  'it  is  God's  work,  whether  he  do  it 
in  one  second  or  in  eighty  years .' "  The  Immanence  of  God,  pp.  29- 
30. 

[101] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

categories  in  its  investigations.     It  very  likely 
is.     I  only  wish  to  urge  that,  in  so  far  as 
evolution  confines  itself  to  the  enumeration 
of  antecedent  events  of  a  mechanical  kind, 
it  shares  the  inadequacy  of  mechanical  expla- 
nation in  general.     That  inadequacy  has  been 
sufficiently  discussed  already,  and  there  is  no 
need  to  reiterate  the  arguments  here.     I  con- 
tend (though  I  fear  the  point  is  too  technical 
for  adequate  discussion  here)  that  evolution 
always  implies  an  end  or  plan  in  the  progres- 
sive realization  of  which  evolution  consists, 
and    that    evolution  would  become  unrecog- 
nizable  as   such   without   the   recognition   of 
such  an  end,  result  or  plan.^     We  have  abun- 
dant evidence  in  the  organic  world,  at  least, 
not  only  that  certain  results  are  systemati- 
cally realized,  but  that  they  are  in  innumer- 
able instances  even  anticipated  and  actually 
striven  towards. 
^,     ,,  The  impulse  in   nature   to   strive 

The  will  to  ^ 

struggle.  ^^^  struggle  is,  in  fact,  the  one  most 
striking  fact  about  nature,  but  it  is  the 
very  fact  which  evolutionary  theories  either 

t  Cf .  for  a  fuller  discussion  of  this,  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics, 
p.  265  S.,  and  literature  cited  there. 

[  102  ] 


MECHANISM   AND    TELEOLOGY 

entirely  neglect  or  assume  to  be  of  little 
significance.  Without  the  existence  in  the 
universe  of  the  impulse  to  strive,  the  will  to 
live,  to  use  Schopenhauer's  phrase,  natural 
selection  would  become  inoperative,  and  the 
whole  machinery  of  evolution  would  come  to 
a  standstill.  This  point  has  been  forcefully 
urged  by  Paulsen:  "The  presupposition  of 
development  is,  of  course,  the  will  to  live,  the 
will  to  struggle  for  existence,  common  to 
all  beings  taking  part  in  evolution.  They  do 
not  suffer  the  development  passively,  they  are 
not,  like  the  pebbles  in  the  brook,  pushed 
into  a  new  form  by  mechanical  causes  acting 
from  without.  Their  own  inner  activity  is 
the  absolute  condition  of  the  efficacy  of 
natural  selection.  The  struggle  for  existence 
is  not  imposed  upon  individuals  from  without; 
it  is  their  own  will  to  fight  the  battle;  and 
without  this  will  .  .  .  there  could  be 
no  such  struggle  for  existence  at  all.''^ 

1  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  pp.  185-6.  Cf.  the  following  from 
the  brillant  work  of  Weber  on  the  History  of  European  Philosophy: 
"Now,  we  may  ask  ourselves  the  question:  Does  not  the  Darwinian 
principle,  which  materialists  invoke  with  such  confidence,  corrobo- 
rate, rather  than  overturn,  the  hypothesis  of  immanent  teleology? 
Is  it  really  true  that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  a  first  cause  and 
exclusively  mechanical.^     Does   not  the  struggle  for  hfe,  in  turn, 

[103] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 


Summary.  It  Will  bc  wcll  to  bring  togctlier, 

at  this  point,  the  main  conclusions  at  which 
we  have  arrived  in  the  present  section.  (1) 
We  saw  at  the  outset  that  any  attempt  to 
interpret  the  absolute  experience  in  terms  of 
pure  thought  would  likely  be  foredoomed  to 
failure  for  the  reason  that  a  purely  cognitive 
form  of  experience  is  something  with  which 
we  have  no  acquaintance,  and  for  which  we 
have  no  psychological  warrant  whatsoever. 
In  all  experience  which  we  know,  the  cognitive 
and  volitional  features  are  inextricably  woven 
together  into  one  concrete,  unitary  whole  of 
mental  life.  (2)  The  conviction  that  experi- 
ence  contains  volitional  and  active  features 
we  found  to  be  apparently  corroborated  by 
the  language  of  popular  thought  and  of 
science  which  tends  constantly  to  interpret 
the  world  in  terms  of  force  or  energy.  (3) 
A  closer  examination  of  the  changes  and  events 
which  occur  in  nature  showed  us,  however, 


presuppose  Schopenhauer's  will  to  live,  will  or  effort,  without  which, 
according  to  the  profound  remark  of  Leibniz,  there  can  be  no  sub- 
stance? Does  it  not,  therefore,  presuppose  an  anterior,  superior  and 
immaterial  cause?  What  can  the  formula:  struggle  for  existence, 
mean,  except:  struggle  in  order  to  exist?"  A  History  of  Philosophy, 
English  translation,  p.  572.  See  also  my  little  book  on  Bergson, 
especially  Section  VII. 

[104  1 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 

that  we  do  not  get  any  direct,  first-hand  ac- 
quaintance through  these  with  anything  cor- 
responding to  the  notions  of  force  or  energy. 
All  that  we  can  actually  observe  in  nature  is 
temporal  sequence.  (4)  The  concept  of  force 
or  energy  we  found  to  be  derived  from  our 
own  inner  experience,  in  such  volitional 
phenomena  as  bodily  effort  and  purposively 
controlled  thought.  The  only  source  of  en- 
ergy or  power  of  which  we  have  any  direct 
knowledge  is,  accordingly,  personality  or  will. 
The  idea  of  energy  or  efficiency  which  we 
ascribe  to  objects  in  nature,  or  to  natural 
law,  is  in  all  probability  transferred  into 
nature  in  virtue  of  the  inevitable  tendency 
to  interpret  all  things  in  terms  of  our  own 
experience.  In  this  view,  natural  law  is  of 
course  no  force  or  energy  bringing  things 
about:  it  is  simply  a  name  or  a  formula 
descriptive  of  the  way  things  actually  happen 
in  nature.  So  with  evolution.  Evolution  is 
simply  an  account  of  the  way  the  world 
probably  arrived  at  its  present  state  of  com- 
pleteness. It  gives  an  account,  in  so  far  as 
it  can,  of  the  machinery,  so  to  speak,  by 
means  of  which  certain  results  are  brought 

[  105  ] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

about.  The  ultimate  source  of  energy  which 
makes  the  world  a  dynamic  rather  than  a 
quiescent  thing,  which  makes  it  pulsate  with 
life  and  movement,  and  carries  it  forward 
through  successive  stages  of  development, — 
the  power  itself,  in  short,  which  produces 
evolution,  is  as  much  hidden  from  our  view, 
if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  study  of  external 
phenomena,  as  before  evolutionary  theories 
were  ever  propounded.  (5)  As  a  collateral 
result  of  our  whole  discussion  of  natural 
law  and  of  evolution  we  were  led  to  a  general 
criticism  of  the  whole  method  of  explaining 
events  by  merely  mechanical  causes,  natural 
laws,  etc.  Such  explanation  always  remains 
one-sided  and  inadequate  until  it  is  supple- 
mented by  the  use  of  certain  teleological 
categories  such  as  ends,  interests  and  purposes. 
If  consideration  of  these  is  excluded,  many 
events  in  nature  and  in  human  life  remain 
totally  unintelligible.  The  very  terms  change, 
evolution,  progress,  regression,  etc.,  so  freely 
employed  by  current  evolutionary  science, 
are  found  to  be  meaningless,  when  closely 
examined,  except  when  considered  in  connec- 
tion with  certain  results  or  ends  attained  in 
[1061 


MECHANISM   AND    TELEOLOGY 


the  process  of  evolution.  The  movement  of 
a  physical  object,  even,  can  be  noted  and 
measured  only  by  making  reference  to  some 
objective  point  from  which  or  towards  which 
the  movement  is  taking  place. 

The  results  of  evolution,  when  once  observed, 
may  thus  shed  a  flood  of  light  upon  the  thou- 
sands of  changes  which  have  led  up  to  those 
results,  changes  which  had  previously  been 
without  meaning: 

"From  the  grand  result, 
A  supplementary  reflux  of  light 
Illustrates  all  the  inferior  grades,  explains 
Each  back  step  in  the  circle."  ^ 

So  far  from  being  able,  therefore,  to  explain 
completely  the  later  products  of  evolution  by 
the  earlier,  life  and  mind,  for  example,  by 
their  lifeless  antecedents,  we  may  be  obliged 
to  explain  the  earlier  by  the  later,  or,  more 
accurately,  by  reference  to  the  plan  or  purpose 
involved  in  the  process  as  a  whole,  and  implicit 
at  its  every  stage.  Man's  lowly  origin  in  the 
form  of  his  animal  antecedents  has  often  been 
made  the  occasion  for  belittling  his  present 
status  and  his  possibilities.     But  this  is  both 

1  Browning,  Paracelsus,  V. 
[107] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

unphilosopliical  and  unfair.  "We  have  lost 
the  memorials  of  our  extraction,"  says  the 
Roman  Stoic,  "in  truth  it  matters  not  whence 
we  come,  but  whither  we  go." 

"If  once  but  dust  or  ape  or  worm, 
A  growing  brain  and  then  a  soul. 
Sure  these  are  but  prophetic  germ 
Of  that  which  makes  our  circle  whole." 

The  natural  laws  which  obtain  in  the  world, 
and  through  which  evolution  works,  are  of 
course  not  so  many  hindrances  to  the  realiza- 
tion of  God's  purposes:  they  are  the  very 
means  and  ways  through  which  these  purposes 
get  their  constant  fulfilment.  The  vast  and 
varied  examples  of  law  and  power  throughout 
all  nature,  from  the  swelling  bud  that  feels  its 
way  into  the  sunlight,  and  the  blade  of  grow- 
ing grass,  to  the  star  that  holds  its  course 
through  the  immensities,  and  the  youth  who 
presses  forward  to  reach  his  ideal, — these  are 
the  silent  witnesses,  all,  of  that  indwelling 
Presence 

"From  whom  all  being  emanates,  all  power 
Proceeds;  in  whom  is  hfe  forevermore."  ^ 

I  Tennyson,  In  Memoriam. 
[108] 


MECHANISM   AND   TELEOLOGY 


Literature 

Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  and  Wilm,  Bergson. 
Bowne,  Personalism. 

FuUerton,  A  System  of  Metaphysics,  Chapter  XV. 
Haldane,  The  Pathway  to  Reahty,Book  II,  Lecture  HI. 
Hartmann,  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious. 
Janet,  Final  Causes. 

Kiilpe,  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  §  20. 
Paulsen,  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  Chapter  11. 
Pearson,  A  Grammar  of  Science,  Chapters  III  and  VIII. 
Rashdall,  Philosophy  and  ReUgion,  Lecture  II. 
Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  Book  III,  Chapter 
III. 


[1091 


V 

THE  VALUE  OF  LIFE:  OPTIMISM 
AND  PESSIMISM 


V 

THE  VALUE  OF  LIFE:  OPTIMISM  AND 
PESSIMISM 

_      ,  ,         The  reader  who  has  followed  the 

Tne  central 

S^'w"^      discussion    attentively    so    far    will 
^^  ^{^   ,.       have  noticed  that,  althou^fh  we  have 

good  on  the  <-> 

^^°^^^  reached  an  essentially  idealistic  view 

of  the  world  by  interpreting  reality  in  terms  of 
the  thought  and  will  of  an  absolute  Experience, 
we  have  not  yet  given  such  an  interpretation 
of  it  as  the  religious  consciousness  requires. 
We  found  at  the  outset  that  religion  contains 
the  conviction  that  the  universe  is  divine, 
meaning  by  that  that  the  events  in  the 
universe  are  controlled  in  view  of  a  supreme 
and  lasting  good.  It  is  not  sufficient  for  the 
purposes  of  religious  adoration  and  worship, 
for  exami:>le,  to  interpret  the  universe  in  terms 
of  power,  or  even  of  purpose,  as  we  did  in  the 
last  section.  The  existence  of  power  in  the 
universe  is  undisputed.  Its  beneficent  effects 
and  its  terrible  ravages  are  too  varied  and 
striking  to  be  easily  overlooked.  The  impor- 
9  [1131 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

tant  question  which  remains  is  whether  the 
power  at  the  heart  of  things  is  good.  That 
this  question  presents  a  very  troublesome 
problem  no  one  who  has  reflected  on  the 
matter  at  all  will  for  a  moment  deny.  The 
assertions  that  nature  is  "red  of  tooth  and 
claw,"  and  that  "nothing  walks  with  aimless 
feet,"  are  indeed  widely  discrepant  attitudes 
which  it  w^ill  not  be  easy  to  bring  together 
under  a  single  w^orld-view.  The  great  poets, 
like  Browning  and  Tennyson,  have  felt  the 
problem  of  evil  to  be  both  persistent  and 
difficult,  and  the  tendency  of  modern  philoso- 
phy has  been  to  rest  the  emphasis  more  and 
more  stably  and  firmly  upon  this  problem  as 
the  central  problem  of  theism.  Do  the 
energies  in  the  universe  operate  blindly, 
indifferent  to  ethical  distinctions,  or  even 
maliciously,  or  can  we  detect,  amid  the  vast 
forces  with  which  the  world  fairly  teems  and 
palpitates,  evidences  of  goodness  and  love?^ 

1 A  friend  proposed  to  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers  the  following  ques- 
tion: "What  is  the  thing  which  above  all  others  you  would  like  to 
know?  If  you  could  ask  the  Sphinx  one  question,  and  only  one,  what 
would  the  question  be?"  After  a  moment's  silence  Myers  replied: 
"I  think  it  would  be  this:  Is  the  universe  friendly?" 


114 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 


The  terms  How    caii    this    qucstioii    be    an- 

probiem;        sweFccl  ?     Only,  I  conceivc,  through 

definition  n    i  •  p  ill* 

of  good.  the  study  of  hie  as  we  actually  live 
it,  and  through  the  study  of  the  larger  life  of 
humanity  as  this  is  depicted  to  us  in  the 
historical,  literary  and  biographical  records  of 
the  great  reporters  and  confessors  of  human 
experience  now  so  freely  accessible  to  us.  It 
is  futile,  in  other  words,  to  begin,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  older  theodicies,  with  the  good- 
ness of  God,  and  to  argue  from  this  to  the 
essential  goodness  of  the  world.  Our  knowl- 
edge of  God,  if  we  have  such  knowledge,  must 
be  derived  from  the  manifestations  of  his 
nature  which  we  find  in  the  world  in  which  we 
live.  If  the  world  were  bad,  I  do  not  see  that 
we  have  any  ground  whatever  for  asserting 
the  goodness  of  God,  unless,  indeed,  God  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  world,  or  were  power- 
less to  control  it.  But  such  an  impotent  God 
could,  I  suppose,  not  be  called  good  in  the 
usual  acceptation  of  that  term. 

A  study  of  life  and  literature  will  soon  con- 
vince us  that  the  universe  contains  much  good 
[115] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

and  happiness,  as  well  as  much  evil  and  misery. 
This  is  evidently  not  the  "best  of  all  possible 
worlds."  That  it  would  not  be  is  precisely 
what  we  might  have  expected  from  the  con- 
sideration that  perfect  happiness  can  come 
only  as  a  result  of  perfect  adaptation  to 
environment.  But  perfect  adaptation  to 
environment  can  at  any  one  time  only  be 
approximated,  owing  to  the  fact  that  both  the 
individual  and  the  environment  are  constantly 
changing.  The  precise  problem  that  would 
accordingly  seem  to  call  for  solution  is  the 
problem  whether  life  contains  more  good  than 
evil,  or  whether  life  is  good  on  the  whole. 

The  solution  of  this  problem  is  evidently 
beset  with  many  difficulties.  In  the  first 
place,  what  do  we  mean  by  anything's  being 
good.^  Nothing  can  be  judged  to  be  good  or 
bad,  I  take  it,  apart  from  need  or  desire.  In 
a  lifeless  universe  the  distinction  between 
good  and  bad  would  evidently  be  unmeaning; 
but  as  soon  as  life  appears,  with  its  character- 
istic biases  and  interests,  the  basis  for  the 
distinction  exists.  But  desires  are  very  diverse 
in  their  character.  One  of  the  most  common 
and  ineradicable  distinctions,  for  example,  is 
[116] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

the  deep-lying  distinction  between  lower  and 
higher  desires,  between  legitimate  and  illegiti- 
mate desires.  Now  is  anything  good  which 
satisfies  desire,  irrespective  of  the  ethical 
quality  of  the  desire,  as  some  writers  seem 
to  assume,  or  shall  we  call  only  that  good 
which  satisfies  desires  which  we  can  ethically 
approve?  To  judge  anything  to  be  good, 
means,  I  answer,  to  judge  it  to  be  in  harmony 
with  those  desires  which  we  can  ethically 
approve,  as  distinguished  from  those  desires 
which,  while  we  have  them,  we  recognize  as 
comparatively  worthless  or  wrong.  ^  The  dis- 
tinction is  an  extremely  important  one.  Many 
persons  doubtless  fail  to  attain  happiness ^  be- 
cause they  seek  it  through  the  wrong  objects, 
and  in  directions  and  pursuits  not  capable  of 
yielding  it.  These  directions  and  pursuits 
are  often  ethically  worthless  or  bad.  But 
we  should  hardly  be  ready  to  condemn  the 
universe  on  account  of  the  unhappiness  which 

I  Cf.  McTaggart,  op.  cit.,  p.  11. 

2 1  assume  here  that  happiness  makes  life  valuable,  and  I  do  not 
wish  to  argue  the  question  here.  I  presume  that  no  one  would  care 
to  assert  that  it  is  not  a  constituent  part  of  the  good,  even  if  it  can- 
not be  said  to  be  the  only  constituent. 

[117] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

it   contained   if   this   unhappiness   is   due   to 
man's  folly,  or  his  moral  unworthiness. 

But,  though  the  problem  of  the  value  of  life 
is  greatly  simplified  by  eliminating  from  con- 
sideration desires  which  fail  to  result  in  happi- 
ness because  they  are  misdirected  or  wrong, 
it  is  still  far  from  being  solved.  For  there  are 
doubtless  many  desires  and  needs  clearly 
recognized  as  ethically  legitimate  which  life 
leaves  unsatisfied.  If  man's  unhappiness  is 
often  due  to  his  own  dulness  and  moral 
unworthiness,  it  also  often  comes,  as  Carlyle 
has  profoundly  remarked,  of  man's  greatness. 
It  is  on  account  of  the  fact  that  there  exists 
in  him  an  infinite  aspiration  that  the  real  world 
about  him  oppresses  him  with  its  sordid  mean- 
ness. His  misery  springs  from  the  vague  fear 
that,  after  all,  the  soul  of  the  world  may  not 
be  just,  and  that  the  good  may,  after  all,  not 
be  the  deepest  and  most  enduring  reality,  as 
Plato  nobly  taught.  It  is  the  defeat  of  the 
good,  if  it  is  indeed  defeated,  that  offers  the 
most  troublesome  problem  which  religious 
optimism  has  to  face. 


[118] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

II 

Has  ufe  The  questioii  whether  life  has  value, 

ethical 

worth?  Dif-    even  in  the  sense  of  enabling  us  to 

ficulties  of  ^  _ 

the  question  gain  happiuess  through  the  satisfac- 
tion of  legitimate  desires,  is  highly  ambiguous. 
When  closely  examined,  it  will  be  found  to  be 
reducible  to  at  least  three  questions  which 
admit  of  being  treated  separately.  The  first 
is.  Does  the  life  of  a  given  individual  contain 
more  happiness  than  misery  .^^  The  second  is. 
Does  the  life  of  all  men  together,  taken  at  the 
present  time,  yield  a  balance  of  happiness? 
And,  finally,  the  question  may  mean.  Does  the 
future  of  the  race  promise  an  increase  of 
happiness  and  a  diminution  of  misery.^  In 
other  words,  is  there  progress? 

The  answers  to  all  these  questions  are 
exceedingly  difficult.  The  problem  of  the 
comparative  amounts  of  happiness  and  misery 
in  the  life  of  a  single  individual  would  seem  to 
be  the  easiest  of  solution.  But  even  here  we 
encounter  fundamental  difficulties.  The  only 
testimony  available  on  the  point  is  that  of  the 
individual  himself,  and  we  know  that  the 
testimony  of  a  person  on  the  subject  of  his 
[119] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

own  life  is  extremely  untrustworthy.  The 
answer,  in  the  first  place,  will  be  influenced 
profoundly  by  the  feeling  of  the  moment. 
All  life,  no  matter  how  successful  it  may  have 
been,  seems  a  failure  to  the  man  whose  spirits 
have  suffered  momentary  depression,  A  per- 
son cannot  in  a  moment  of  despondency 
feel  the  full  value  of  his  life:  he  feels  only 
where  the  shoe  pinches.  Moreover,  the  pleas- 
ures and  pains  entering  into  an  individual 
life  are  so  varied  in  their  quality  that  it  seems 
impossible  to  reduce  them  to  a  common 
denominator  so  as  to  be  able  to  compare  them. 
The  phrases,  "balance  of  pleasure,"  "balance 
of  pain,"  etc.,  frequently  used  by  ethical 
writers,  do  indeed  suggest  the  possibility  of 
an  hedonic  calculus.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
no  philosopher  ever  undertook  the  actual  cal- 
culation of  pleasures  and  pains  without  being 
convinced  of  the  utter  futility  of  the  under- 
taking.^ 

1  Paulsen  ridicules  the  hedonic  calculus  by  the  following:  Receipts 
in  pleasure :  1 .  Slept  well— equal  so  many  units ;  2.  Enjoyed  my  break- 
fast; 3.  Read  a  chapter  from  a  good  book;  4.  Received  a  letter  from 
a  friend;  etc.  Pain:  Read  a  disagreeable  story  in  a  paper;  2.  Received 
a  tiresome  \'isit;  3.  Disturbed  by  a  neighbor's  piano;  4.  Ate  burnt 
soup;  etc.  The  philosopher  is  requested  to  insert  the  proper  amounts 
in  the  proper  places.  A  System  of  Ethics,  pp.  289-90. 
[120] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

It  might,  indeed,  be  said  in  answer  to  this 
that  the  fact  that  men  refrain  from  suicide 
amounts  to  a  judgment  of  approval  of  Hfe. 
This  consideration  lacks  force  for  a  number  of 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  the  act  of  self- 
destruction,  when  it  is  committed,  is  usually 
committed  in  a  moment  of  deep  despondency 
such  as  was  referred  to  above,  and  can,  on  that 
account,  not  be  considered  as  representing  the 
calm  judgment  of  life,  such  as  would  be 
rendered  if  the  person  concerned  were  in  a 
normal  state  of  mind.  Second,  persons  who 
are  genuine  pessimists  regarding  the  value  of 
their  lives  nevertheless  refrain  from  suicide 
from  the  fear  of  causing  pain  to  others.  Some 
people,  at  least,  are  restrained  from  the  act 
of  suicide  by  a  fear  of  future  punishment.^ 
Lastly,  and  perhaps  most  importantly,  life  is 
guarded  by  the  very  powerful  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  which  is  often  strong  enough  to 

'  Cf .  Shakespeare,  Hamlet,  Act  III,  Scene  I : 
" —  Who  would  fardels  bear. 
To  grunt  and  sweat  under  a  weary  life. 
But  that  the  dread  of  something  after  death. 
The  undiscovered  country  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveller  returns,  puzzles  the  will. 
And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of?" 

[  121 1 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

override  the  repeated  judgment  and  dictate 
of  reason,  much  as  the  sexual  and  other  power- 
ful instincts  carry  the  day  even  though  rational 
considerations  forbid  their  gratification.  ^ 

When  we  pass  to  the  second  question,  our 
difficulties  only  increase.  How  can  the  com- 
parative happiness  of  two  lives  be  measured 
when  so  much  depends  upon  the  degree  of 
sensitiveness,  and  the  peculiarity  of  endow- 
ment, intellectual,  artistic,  ethical,  etc.,  of 
the  persons  concerned,  making  them  suscepti- 
ble of  very  different  degrees  and  grades  of 
happiness  .^  But,  irrespective  of  these  personal 
differences,  it  seems  impossible  to  balance  one 
man's  happiness  against  the  misery  of  another 
so  as  to  say  whether  life  is  good  or  bad  on  the 
whole.  It  seems,  when  we  think  about  the 
matter  closely,  that  each  individual  must  in 
some  sense  be  considered  by  himself,  and  as 
having  claims  to  happiness  which  cannot  be 
satisfied  by  any  amount  of  happiness  possessed 
by  other  persons.  To  borrow  a  striking  illus- 
tration from  Mr.  McTaggart,  a  universe  in 

»This  is  amusingly  illustrated  by  the  anecdote  of  the  man  who 
was  on  his  way  to  the  river  to  commit  suicide,  but  who  promptly 
climbed  a  tree  when  attacked  by  a  ferocious  bull. 

[122] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

which  three  people  out  of  every  five  were  in 
heaven  and  two  in  every  five  in  hell  might 
have  a  greater  amount  of  happiness  in  it  than 
of  misery.  But  we  should  not  on  that  account 
call  the  universe  good.^  This  brings  out  a 
fundamental  antinomy  which  is  troublesome 
enough  to  make  those  pause  who  have  a 
ready  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  universe. 
It  seems  indeed  irrational  and  perhaps  immoral 
for  a  man  to  pray  (may  he  even  hope.'^)  for 
the  wind  to  fill  his  sails  when  the  same  wind 
would  carry  his  neighbor's  bark  away  from  its 
goal.  And  the  world  is  doubtless  more  inter- 
esting and  more  prosperous  with  a  hundred 
fleets  sailing  its  seas  than  it  would  be  if  it  con- 
tained only  one  lone  and  leaky  vessel.  Still, 
it  seems  to  be  asking  too  much  to  expect  a  man 
to  pronounce  the  world  good  if  his  own  life 
and  fortunes  are  about  to  be  involved  in  utter 
ruin,  even  if  the  rest  of  the  world  should  not 
be  a  whit  the  less  happy  for  it.  The  world 
doubtless  is  good  for  the  woodpecker  about 
to  draw  the  grub  out  from  its  cozy  hiding- 
place.  But  the  worm  could  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  take  the  outside  point  of  view.     The 

>  Op.  cit.,  p.  17. 
[123] 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   RELIGION 

individual,  says  Professor  Bowne  somewhere, 
enforcing  the  same  point,  can  never  be  used 
merely  as  fuel  for  the  warming  of  society. 

The  answer  to  the  third  question,  whether 
the  evolution  of  life  will  lead  to  an  increase 
of  happiness  and  a  diminution  of  misery,  that 
is,  whether  there  is  progress,  would  seem  still 
more  problematical.  If  we  cannot  success- 
fully estimate  the  value  of  the  life  we  observe 
around  us,  how  can  we  hope  to  estimate  the 
value  of  life  under  future  conditions  the 
nature  of  which  is  almost  entirely  hidden  from 
us?  Our  only  resource  here  is  to  certain 
scientific  considerations  of  a  general  kind 
which  may  throw  an  unexpected  light  on 
the  problem.  They  will,  I  hope,  aid  us,  not 
only  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of  progress, 
but  also  with  the  general  question  of  the 
value  of  the  life  we  now  live. 


Ill 

The  con-  Tlicrc   arc   three   principles   of    a 

tribution  i    •     i        •        i  i   •    i 

ofbioi-  biological  sort  which  seem  to  pro- 
ure'feei-  vidc  for  thc  coustaut  elimination  of 
welfare.  dcfcctivc  and  unfelicific  forms  of 
life,  and  the  preferential  selection  of  those 
[124] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

forms  most  completely  adapted  to  prevail- 
ing conditions  of  life,  forms  which,  because 
so  adapted,  must  have  a  positive  hedonic 
value. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  general  connection 
which  exists  between  physical  welfare  and 
pleasure  feeling,  high  physical  vitality  being 
accompanied  by  a  strongly  marked  pleasure 
tone,  the  pleasure  tone  reacting  favorably,  in 
turn,  upon  physical  welfare.  Pleasure,  as 
the  accompaniment  of  organic  health,  must 
therefore  be  the  rule,  and  pain,  the  symptom  of 
organic  disturbance,  the  exception  for  all  liv- 
ing creatures.  Almost  all  biologists  have 
pointed  out  this  fact,  but  philosophers  have 
not  often  drawn  the  consequences  of  it  for  the 
theory  of  optimism  and  pessimism.  To  bring 
out  the  full  force  of  the  principle,  let  us 
imagine  nature  to  be  so  constructed  as  to 
eliminate  creatures  whenever  their  life 
attained  a  sufficient  pleasure  tone  to  render 
them  fairly  comfortable,  and  to  select  for  sur- 
vival creatures  whose  life  was  intrinsically 
painful,  and  whose  prospects  of  life  would 
not  decrease  no  matter  how  wretched  their 
existence  became.  Under  such  conditions  the 
[125] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

philosopher  with  optimistic  leanings  would 
evidently  have  enough  to  do  to  keep  him  at 
least  healthfully  employed !  As  it  is,  an  auto- 
matic limit  seems  to  be  set  to  the  amount  of 
pain.  After  pain  has  increased  to  a  certain 
point,  death  comes  as  a  release.  And  after 
death  there  is  no  more  pain. 

But  then  even  happy  creatures  do  not  live 
forever,  and  ill-adapted  and  wretched  crea- 
tures are  constantly  being  produced  and  for  a 
time  maintained.  Thus  our  argument  seems 
after  all  to  be  self -refuting.  If  life  is  valuable, 
it  might  be  said,  then  the  interruption  of  it 
through  death  must  be  an  evil.  And  if  death 
is  a  good,  it  can  be  such  only  on  the  assumption 
that  it  comes  as  a  release  from  an  undesirable 
existence.  The  force  of  this  must  of  course 
be  granted.  The  hope  of  completely  explain- 
ing evil  is  one  which  we  may  as  well  definitely 
abandon  as  futile.  This  is  evidently  not  the 
best  of  all  possible  worlds,  and  we  have  already 
confessed  so  much.  It  is  true  that  the  argu- 
ment assumes  that  death  brings  destruction 
to  all  the  objects  which  make  life  valuable, 
an  assumption  which  we  need  not  let  pass 
unchallenged.  I  hope  to  deal  with  this  sub- 
[126] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

ject  somewhat  fully  in  another  section,  where 
the  nature  and  significance  of  death  will,  I 
hope,  appear  in  a  different  light  from  the  usual, 
and  where  the  antithesis  between  death  and 
life  will  be  shown  to  be  not  so  sharp  as  that 
commonly  felt. 
The  effects  Thcrc  Is  a  second  principle  which 

of  hered-  •  i  i  i  i  i  •        • 

ityand  IS  closcly    Tclatcd    to    the   one   ]ust 

selection.  discusscd,  and  which  makes  the  hy- 
pothesis that  life  is  valuable,  and  that  it  will 
become  more  valuable  with  the  passing  of 
time,  an  extremely  reasonable  one.  There  is 
going  on  in  nature  a  constant  process  of  per- 
fecting the  physical  features  of  man  through 
the  survival  and  propagation  of  the  more 
perfect  forms,  those  best  adapted  to  cope  with 
the  physical  and  animal  environments  in  the 
midst  of  which  their  life  is  cast.  The  ten- 
dency of  this  principle  would  evidently  be  to 
raise  man  to  a  higher  level  of  life  as  time 
passes.  The  survival  of  the  more  efficient 
forms  is  guaranteed  by  the  greater  resistance 
which  these  forms  are  able  to  offer  to  the 
mechanical  action  of  the  environment.  That 
they  will  propagate  their  kind  is  rendered 
comparatively  certain,  not  only  on  account 
[1271 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 

of  the  greater  fertility  which  they  would  as 
a  rule  possess,  but  owing  to  the  operation 
of  another  principle  of  considerable  impor- 
tance, the  principle  of  sexual  selection,  accord- 
ing to  which  individuals  show  a  preference  in 
mating  for  individuals  of  the  opposite  sex 
showing  superiority  of  strength,  physical 
features,  mode  of  behavior,  adornment,  etc. 
The  high  physical  development  and  extreme 
beauty  of  many  of  the  lower  animals  are 
explained  in  this  manner.  Examples  of  the 
preferential  selection  of  mates  abound  in  the 
literature  of  biology.  Bechstein,  a  life-long 
observer  of  bird  behavior,  asserts  that  the 
female  canary  always  chooses  the  best  singer, 
and  that  in  a  state  of  nature  the  female  finch 
selects  that  mate  out  of  a  hundred  whose 
notes  please  her  most.i  Of  the  American 
night  hawks,  again,  it  is  said  that  their 
"manner  of  flying  is  a  good  deal  modified 
at  the  love  season.  The  male  employs  the 
most  wonderful  evolutions  to  give  expression 
to  his  feelings,  conducting  them  with  the 
greatest  rapidity  and  agility  in  the  sight  of 

I  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  Vol.  II,  p.  58. 
f  128  1 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

his  chosen  mate,  or  to  put  to  rout  a  rival."  ^ 
The  last  statement  brings  out  the  important 
point  that  success  in  courtship  depends  upon 
his  ability  to  kill  or  to  intimidate  his  rival,  as 
well  as  upon  his  picturesqueness  of  behavior 
and  his  physical  display  in  the  presence  of  his 
mate.  Thus,  as  Darwin  remarks,  the  law  of 
battle  cooperates  with  preferential  mating  in 
the  development  of  animal  life,  the  most 
defiant,  powerful  and  mettlesome  male  mo- 
nopolizing the  favors  of  his  chosen  mate. 

The  principle  of  sexual  selection  does  not  of 
course  operate  uniformly  at  different  levels  of 
animal  life,  and  much  of  the  controversy 
which  has  raged  over  the  principle  is  due  to 
the  failure  to  make  this  clear.  Some  have 
denied  any  large  influence  to  this  factor  on  the 
ground  that  there  are  no  males  or  females 
among  the  lower  animals  which  go  unmated. 
This  is  perhaps  true  for  lower  animals,  but  it 
is  evidently  of  little  force  as  applied  to  man- 
kind, for  there  are  here  both  males  and  females 
that  never  marry,  and  that  do  not  transmit 
their  traits.  Whatever,  therefore,  may  be 
the  case  among  the  lower  animals,  the  princi- 

» Audubon,  quoted  by  C.  Lloyd  Morgan,  Animal  Behavior,  p.  261. 
10  [  129  ] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

pie  of  sexual  selection,  which  prefers  some 
individuals  over  others  as  bearers  of  offspring, 
remains  for  mankind  of  distinct  importance. 
In  human  society,  to  be  sure,  the  operation  of 
the  principle  becomes  considerably  compli- 
cated by  the  interference  with  the  natural 
mating  instinct  on  the  part  of  intelligence. 
Success  in  mating  now  no  longer  depends  upon 
the  ferocity  and  brute  strength  of  the  male, 
nor  upon  the  physical  attractiveness  of  the 
female,  as  in  the  case  of  lower  creatures. 
Physical  superiority  is  now  forced  to  compete 
with  mental  eminence  or  sprightliness,  with 
the  possession  of  wealth,  of  social  prestige,  and 
the  Hke,  and  often  with  certain  merely  con- 
ventional marks  of  superiority,  which  may  in 
reality  be  symptoms  of  degeneracy,  like  slight- 
ness  of  figure,  pallor,  a  dependent  disposition, 
etc.,  persons  possessing  these  traits  being  often 
preferred  to  those  possessing  physical  robust- 
ness and  strength  of  personality.  Fortunately 
for  the  welfare  of  the  race,  the  instincts  of 
nature  are  difficult  to  crush  out  or  to  suppress 
for  long  at  a  time,  and  physical  perfection,  the 
indispensable  basis  of  all  subsequent  mental 
and  spiritual  achievement,  continues  to  com- 

[130] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 


pete  successfully  with  its  rival  factors  in  the 
fascination  it  exercises  over  the  opposite  sex. 
What  type  of  person  will  be  selected  in  marriage 
will  clearly  depend  upon  the  conceptions  of 
the  persons  concerned  as  to  what  constitutes 
physical  and  mental  superiority.  It  may  be 
safely  assumed,  however,  that  natural  instinct, 
aided  by  man's  growing  intelligence,  will  not 
stray  far  from  the  right  path.i  The  young 
but  very  active  science  of  eugenics,  the  science 
of  being  born  well,  as  someone  has  defined  it, 
promises  to  do  much  in  the  near  future  toward 
the  dissemination  of  scientific  knowledge  re- 
garding important  subjects  like  heredity, 
and  toward  securing  legal  enactments  for- 
bidding the  marriage  of  the  unfit,  thus  render- 
ing impossible  the  transmission  of  traits  mak- 
ing for  individual  and  social  degeneracy. 
How  successful  these  laudable  efforts  will  be, 
the  future  only  can  tell.  It  is  clear  that  no 
recent  movement  in  science  has  promised  so 
much  for  the  betterment  of  mankind.  In 
marriage,  as  well  as  in  their  other  acts,  men 

1  Some  genuine  dangers  to  social  progress  from  the  interference 
^^'ith  the  instinctive  operation  of  the  sex  instinct  by  intelligence 
are  strongly  presented  by  McDougall,  Social  Psychology,  Chapter  X. 

[131] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

are  usually  desirous  of  doing  the  best  they 
can  for  themselves.  The  main  thing  which 
therefore  seems  requisite  for  race  better- 
ment is  an  increase  in  intelligence  concerning 
the  conditions  and  laws  of  human  welfare. 
And  this,  there  is  every  reason  for  believing, 
will  occur.  1 

A  third  and  most  important  source 

Social 

heredity.  of  progrcss  is  duc  to  thc  valuable 
ability  of  man  to  profit  from  his  past  experi- 
ence, and  to  transmit,  through  what  Pro- 
fessor Baldwin  has  called  "social  heredity," 
its  results  to  succeeding  generations.  To 
the  beneficent  results  of  physical  inheritance, 
handing  down  those  physical  traits  which  have 
proved  most  useful  in  the  struggle  for  life, 
are  thus  added  the  results  of  social  inheritance, 
the  objectified  products  of  man's  brain,  in  the 
form  of  science,  letters,  arts,  inventions, 
religions,  customs,  laws  and  institutions.  The 
significance  of  this  fact  for  civilization  and  the 

I  The  most  important  names  for  the  study  of  eugenics  are  those 
of  Karl  Pearson,  Francis  Galton,  Davenport,  Whetham  and  Mrs. 
Whetham.  The  progress  of  eugenics  has  been  well  outlined  by  Field, 
The  Progress  of  Eugenics.  A  good  popular  presentation  of  the  subject 
is  Kellicott,  The  Social  Direction  of  Human  Evolution.  Salleeby's 
Parenthood  and  Race  Culture  is  readable,  but  less  valuable  and  re- 
liable than  the  other  works  enumerated. 

[132] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

welfare  of  man  cannot  easily  be  exaggerated. 
It  is  only  through  the  possibility  of  each 
generation's  beginning  where  the  former  left 
off  that  the  enormous  advance  of  modern 
civilization  has  been  made  possible.  The 
progress  of  science  has  already  largely  ban- 
ished fear  and  superstition,  and  has  made  man 
at  home  in  the  world.  Through  tools  and 
other  mechanical  inventions  man  has  become, 
and  is  becoming,  the  master  of  his  physical 
environment,  utilizing  its  myriad  forces  and 
laws  for  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes. 
In  literature,  music  and  other  imaginative 
arts  he  is  ever  creating  for  himself  new  forms 
of  refined  gratification,  objects  which  do  not 
perish  with  the  using,  but  are  augmented  and 
deepened,  rather,  in  their  emotional  power, 
as  the  experience  of  them  is  shared  and 
repeated.  1  Through  the  inheritance  of  cus- 
toms, laws  and  institutions  a  permanent  social 
order  becomes  established,  subject,  indeed,  to 
modifications  and  improvements,  but  pro- 
viding all  the  while  for  an  increasing  security 
and    stability    of   social    life.     And    rehgion, 

'  For  a  discussion  of  the  capacity  for  repetition  as  a  mark  of  aesthetic 
experience,  see  Marshall,  Aesthetic  Principles. 

[133] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

increasingly  purified  of  unreason  and  fear, 
unites  in  its  ineffable  unity,  like  a  seamless 
robe,  our  varied  intellectual,  artistic  and  moral 
interests  and  strivings. 

The  causes  ^hc  dcsirablHty  of  man's  life  is 
^^ly^"^  increased  not  merely  by  rendering  it 
remediable,  j^q^q  fcHcific,  but  also  by  rcmoviug 
from  it  the  various  sources  of  misery.  It  will 
be  helpful,  therefore,  for  our  valuation  of  life 
if  we  at  this  point  enumerate  the  main  sources 
of  human  misery,  and  note  what  progress,  if 
any,  humanity  has  made  in  their  elimination. 
The  three  leading  sources  of  human  misery 
are  indigence,  disease  and  death.  It  is  very 
important  for  our  estimation  of  the  value  of 
life  to  remember  that  two  of  them  are  largely 
amenable  to  human  control.  To  quote  the 
words  of  John  Stuart  Mill:  "Poverty,  in  any 
sense  implying  suffering,  may  be  completely 
extinguished  by  the  wisdom  of  society,  com- 
bined with  the  good  sense  and  providence  of 
individuals.  Even  that  most  intractable  of 
enemies,  disease,  may  be  indefinitely  reduced 
in  dimensions  by  good  physical  and  moral 
education,  and  proper  control  of  noxious 
influences;  while  the  progress  of  science  holds 

[134] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

out  a  promise  for  the  future  of  still  more  direct 
conquests  over  this  destestable  foe.  .  .  . 
As  for  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune  and  other 
disappointments  connected  with  worldly  cir- 
cumstances, these  are  principally  the  effect 
either  of  gross  imprudence,  of  ill-regulated  de- 
sires, or  of  bad  or  imperfect  social  institutions. 
All  the  great  sources,  in  short,  of  human 
suffering  are  in  a  great  degree,  many  of  them 
almost  entirely,  conquerable  by  human  care 
and  effort."  1  Much  progress  has  indeed  been 
made  since  Mill's  time  in  the  artificial  elimina- 
tion of  the  suffering  which  accompanies 
extreme  poverty  and  disease.  I  have  in  mind 
here  of  course  the  development  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  financial  and  social  organizations  which 
encourage  the  accumulation  of  savings,  and 
provide  for  the  care  of  the  hopelessly  indigent 
and  helpless.  The  practical  elimination  of 
extreme  physical  pain  by  the  use  of  anaesthet- 
ics is  of  course  one  of  the  most  signal  services 
which  the  science  of  medicine  has  rendered 
the  cause  of  human  progress. 

»  Utilitarianism,  Routledge  edition,  p.  28.  For  the  progress  in  the 
elimination  of  poverty,  which  is  sometimes  thought  to  be  increasing 
in  extent  and  depth,  see  Carroll  D.  Wright,  Some  Ethical  Phases  of 
the  Labor  Question,  and  Eden,  The  State  of  the  Poor, 

[135] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

Activity  There  are  certain  other  sources  of 

piness.  human  happiness,  all  of  them  intrin- 

sically accessible,  which  belong  in  a  pecuhar 
way  to  human  life,  and  which  we  must  notice 
somewhat  carefully.  One  of  these  is  work,  the 
active  use  of  man's  powers  and  capacities  in 
the  struggle  of  existence,  and  in  contending 
with  the  various  obstacles  which  lie  in  the 
path  of  his  purposes.  It  is  one  of  the  con- 
tradictions of  existence  that  the  very  thing 
which  often  seems  to  impede  life  makes  life 
possible  and  adds  to  its  value,  much  as  friction 
impedes  motion,  but  is,  at  the  same  time, 
an  indispensable  condition  of  motion.  "The 
world  is,"  some  one  has  said,  "what  for  an 
active  being  it  must  be,  full  of  hindrances." ^ 
Man  lives,  says  Goethe,  as  long  as  he  strives. 
The  view  that  happiness  is  the  result  of  noble 
action  is  perhaps  the  profoundest  and  most 
valuable  lesson  which  Greek  ethics  has  to  teach 
us.  And  the  lesson  needs  ever  to  be  learned 
anew.  Throughout  all  ages  man  has  sought 
happiness  in  ways  in  which  it  was  not  to  be 
found.  One  of  the  most  common  of  these 
chimeras    is    the  very    opposite    of    activity, 

1  Quoted  in  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  350. 

[ise] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

namely  leisure,  and  wealth,  the  supposed 
means  of  leisure.  The  Greek  conception  of 
the  comparative  value  of  wealth,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  a  life  of  noble  activity,  on  the  other, 
is  illustrated  in  the  well-known  story  of  the 
meeting  of  Croesus  and  Solon,  as  told  by 
Herodotus.  "After  showing  Solon  through  his 
treasury,  Croesus  addressed  the  Athenian  sage 
as  follows:  'O  stranger  from  Athens,  we  have 
heard  much  of  your  wisdom  and  travels,  we 
have  been  told  that  you  have  visited  many 
countries  in  the  pursuit  of  philosophy,  for 
the  sake  of  study.  Now,  I  should  like  to 
know  whether  you  have  ever  seen  a  man  whom 
you  regard  as  the  happiest  of  all.^^'  But  he 
asked  him,  expecting  that  Solon  would  call 
him,  the  king,  the  happiest  of  all  men.  Solon, 
however,  did  not  wish  to  flatter  him,  but  spoke 
the  truth:  'O  king,  the  Athenian  Tellos.' 
The  king  was  surprised  and  asked:  'Why  do 
you  esteem  Tellos  happier  than  all  others.'^' 
Solon  answered:  'Tellos  lived  at  a  time  when 
the  city  was  prosperous;  he  had  beautiful  and 
good  children,  and,  above  all,  lived  to  see  his 
grandchildren,  and  all  of  them  were  preserved 
to  him;  he  was,  for  our  conditions,  in  good 
[137] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

circumstances,  and  finally  he  suffered  a  glori- 
ous death.  At  Eleusis,  in  a  battle  between 
the  Athenians  and  their  neighbors,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  repelling  the  enemy  after  a  gallant 
fight,  and  met  a  most  beautiful  death.  And 
the  Athenians  buried  him  where  he  fell,  at 
public  expense,  and  greatly  honored  him."'i 

The  profound  insight  of  the  Greeks  that 
happiness  comes,  not  from  possessions,  but 
from  a  life  of  noble  activity,  is  one  which 
Browning  uses  with  splendid  effect  in  various 
of  his  poems,  notably  in  the  brilliant  piece, 
Pheidippides.  Pheidippides  is  a  Greek  runner 
commissioned  to  take  the  news  of  victory 
from  Marathon  to  Athens.  Day  and  night  he 
runs,  over  mountain,  through  valley,  across 
stubble  and  field,  with  the  smooth  swiftness  of 
fire.  Having  delivered  his  message  of  victory, 
he  falls  dead  in  his  tracks: 

"Like  wine  through  clay, 
Joy  in  his  blood  bursting  his  heart, 
He  died — the  bliss!" 

Death  here  is  no  tragic  event,  because  it  is 
the  consummation  of  a  life  which  in  a  deed, 
wrought  singly  and  in  solitude,  had  reached  a 

I  Quoted  from  Paulsen,  System  of  Ethics,  pp.  37-38. 
[138] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

swift  and  fitting  climax.     Better  to  die  than  to 
suffer  decline: 

"So  is  Pheidippides  happy  forever, — the  noble  strong 

man 
Who  could  race  like  a  god: 
He  saw  the  land  saved  he  had  helped  to  save,  and  was 

suffered  to  tell 
Such  tidings,  yet  never  decline,  but,  gloriously  as  he 

began, 
So  to  end  gloriously — once  to  shout,  thereafter  be  mute: 
'Athens  is  saved!'" 

Perhaps  neither  of  our  illustrations  is  after 
all  very  well  suited  to  our  purpose,  because 
they  both  tend  to  center  attention  somewhat 
unduly  upon  the  exceptional  event,  the  battle, 
the  brilliant  race,  and  to  draw  it  away  from 
the  normal  exercise  of  life.  While  such  excep- 
tional deeds  doubtless  add  excitement  and 
distinction  to  life,  still,  they  are  not  at  all 
indispensable  to  it.  Fortunately,  it  is  not  the 
unusual  and  highly  flavored  experiences  of 
life  upon  which  we  depend  for  happiness;  the 
most  common  and  chronically  recurring  are 
quite  as  capable  of  yielding  it.  Perhaps  it  is 
the  latter  upon  which,  as  upon  the  bread  and 
meat  of  our  daily  diet,  we  mainly  depend  for 
the  most  enduring  satisfactions.  Mr.  Lecky 
[139] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

reports  a  passage  in  Lord  Althorp's  life  in 
which  "that  most  popular  and  successful 
statesman,  towards  the  close  of  his  long 
parliamentary  life,  expressed  his  emphatic 
conviction  that  the  thing  which  gave  him 
the  greatest  pleasure  in  the  world  was  to  see 
sporting  dogs  hunt."  He  cites  further  the 
instance  of  a  great  writer  who  had  devoted 
almost  his  entire  life  to  the  completion  of  a 
gigantic  literary  work,  but  who  observed  that 
amid  the  congratulations  which  poured  in  to 
him  from  every  side  he  could  not  help  feeling 
how  tepid  was  the  satisfaction  which  such  a 
triumph  could  give  him,  and  what  much  more 
vivid  gratification  he  had  come  to  take  in 
hearing  the  approaching  steps  of  some  little 
children  whom  he  had  taught  to  love  him.^ 
It  would  be  surprising  to  most  persons  to 
know  (if  such  things  could  be  accurately 
determined)  what  a  large  proportion  of  their 
happiness  comes  from  such  common  and 
homely  experiences  as  eating  and  drinking, 
common  work  and  rest,  home  life,  compan- 
ionship, the  recurring  seasons,  animals,  the 
prattle  of  young  children,  and  the  like.     The 

1  The  Map  of  Life,  pp.  22  and  23. 
[140] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

mercies  of  life  are  many,  and  they  come 
upon  us  silently  and  gently,  as  the  dew  upon 
the  garden.  And  it  is  the  failure  to  exploit 
these  common  goods  and  enjoyments  that  fills 
so  many  lives  with  cynicism  and  discontent. 
The  con-  Asidc  from  the  normal  exercise  of 

tribution 

of  insight.  life,  and  the  use  of  our  powers,  the 
other  great  sources  of  specifically  human 
happiness  are  insight  and  love.  The  relation 
of  knowledge  to  man's  welfare  is  manifold. 
The  primary  and  the  most  fundamental  fact 
about  knowledge  is  that  it  constitutes  an  effect- 
ive equipment  for  the  struggle  for  existence,  the 
most  effective,  in  fact,  with  which  any  animal 
has  been  provided.  Knowledge  has  indeed 
other  uses  than  this  instrumental  or  biological 
one  of  helping  man  to  adjust  himself  to  his 
environment.  But  that  it  has  this  function  is 
undeniable.  In  virtue  of  the  possession  of 
memory  and  reasoning,  man  can  "look  before 
and  after,"  can  deliberately  turn  the  results  of 
his  past  experience  to  account  in  meeting 
future  situations,  thus  giving  him  an  immense 
advantage  over  the  lower  creatures,  which 
depend  almost  exclusively  upon  their  per- 
ceptual and  instinctive  endowments  to  guide 
[141] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

them,  an  advantage  roughly  analogous  to  that 
possessed  by  the  eye,  which  is  sensitive  to  dis- 
tant objects,  over  the  sense  of  touch,  which  can 
feel  only  such  objects  as  are  already  in  imme- 
diate contact  with  the  creature. 

It  is  sometimes  asserted  that  knowledge 
only  adds  a  burden  to  man's  life  from  which 
lower  creatures  are  free,  by  enabling  him  to 
see  the  true  nature  of  life.  This  view  clearly 
begs  the  question  by  assuming  that  life  is  evil, 
which  is  precisely  the  point  in  question.  If 
life  is  indeed  an  evil,  then  a  knowledge  of  it 
would  doubtless  increase  man's  misery.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  life  is  good,  knowledge  can 
only  add  to  its  value  by  enabling  man  to  enjoy 
it  in  retrospect  and  in  anticipation,  as  well  as 
in  his  direct  experience.  That  the  perspective 
view  that  knowledge  affords  is  not  itself  of 
definite  significance  for  our  problem  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that,  whereas  many  pleasures  are 
diminished  by  the  anticipation  that  "they 
cannot  last,"  many  misfortunes  are  also 
relieved  by  the  anticipation  of  better  days. 
Both  experiences  are  so  common  that  they 
have  become  a  part  of  the  proverbial  wisdom 
of  the  race. 

[142] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

The  philosophical  optimist  has  of  course 
emphasized  that  aspect  of  the  question  which 
most  readily  supported  his  logical  or  tempera- 
mental bias.  It  is  in  any  case  true  that  many 
apparent  evils  are  full  of  beneficent  meaning 
to  a  wider  knowledge,  which  are  opaque  or 
sinister  to  uninformed  desire.  For  the  frus- 
tration of  immediate  impulse  must  always  be 
felt  as  painful  and  evil.  To  a  child  a  painful 
operation  appears  as  an  unmixed  evil,  even  if 
it  promises  life-long  health.  So  many  appar- 
ent evils  cease  to  be  felt  as  such  when  they  are 
fitted  into  the  larger  contexts  and  connections 
of  life  in  which  they  properly  belong.  One 
has  to  see  a  certain  length  of  a  curved  line 
before  one  can  determine  its  mathematical 
properties.  The  insect  creeping  on  the  ground 
cannot  have  the  same  view  of  the  landscape 
which  is  open  to  the  eagle  in  the  sky.  That 
the  limited  range  of  a  finite  creature's  experi- 
ence may  well  give  it  entirely  erroneous 
impressions  of  the  true  nature  of  its  environ- 
ments is  well  illustrated  by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge: 
*'To  an  organism  living  only  in  the  spring,  the 
world  would  seem  bursting  with  youth  and 
hope,  an  era  of  rising  sap  and  expectation; 
[143] 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGION 

to  an  organism  living  only  in  the  autumn,  over- 
maturity,  decay  and  despair  would  be  the 
dominant  features.  But  to  creatures  whose 
life  is  long  enough  both  phases  are  welcome, 
and  are  recognized  as  parts  of  a  larger  plan."^ 
It  is  essentially  the  prerogative  of  wisdom  to 
take  the  distant  view.  In  virtue  of  it,  man 
can  transcend  the  immediate  data  of  his  sense 
experience,  learning  something,  at  least,  of  the 
larger  features  of  the  universe  in  which  his  life 
is  set.  We  cannot  understand  the  details  of 
so  comparatively  slight  a  production  as  a  poem 
or  any  other  work  of  human  art  if  we  lift  these 
details  out  of  their  concrete  connections,  and 
insist  upon  understanding  them  in  their  bare 
isolation.  And  if  the  universe  is  not  like  a 
bad  poem,  containing  irrelevancies  and  de- 
tached episodes,  how  can  we  hope  to  under- 
stand its  details  except  as  we  try  to  view  them 
in  their  connections  with  the  structure  and 
purpose  of  the  whole  to  which  they  belong.^ 

There  is  a  further  bearing  which  the  posses- 
sion of  reason  has  upon  happiness  which  is  so 
important  as  to  deserve  explicit  mention. 
The  point  relates  to  the  control  which  reason 

I  The  Hibbert  Journal,  January  1912,  p.  296. 
[144] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

can  gain  over  desire,  curtailing  or  expanding 
it,  so  as  to  make  man  largely  independent  of 
the  chances  and  changes  of  fortune.     Let  us 
call  these  two  methods  of  controlling  desire 
the    methods    of    retraction    and    expansion. 
The  first  is  the  method   of  Stoic  austerity, 
the  second  that  of  Christian  generosity.     The 
Stoic    way    consists    in    cutting    off    desire. 
"Make   thy   claim   of   wages    a    zero,"    says 
Carlyle,  "then  hast  thou  the  world  under  thy 
feet."     No    one    has    discussed    this    subject 
more  tellingly  than  the  late  Professor  James. 
"If  a  man  has  given  up  those  things  which 
are   subject  to  foreign  fate,   and  ceased  to 
regard  them  as  parts  of  himself  at  all,  we  are 
wellnigh   powerless   over    him.     The    Stoic's 
receipt  for    contentment    was    to    dispossess 
yourself  in  advance  of  all   that  was  out  of 
your  own  power, — then  fortune's  shocks  might 
rain  down  unfelt."     The  other  way  consists 
in  the  identification  of  others'  interests   and 
fortunes  with  one's  own.     "Such  persons  can 
feel  a   sort   of   delicate   rapture   in   thinking 
that,  however   sick,    ill-favored,  mean-condi- 
tioned, and  generally  forsaken  they  may  be, 
they  yet  are  integral  parts  of  the  whole  of 
11  [  145 1 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

this  brave  world,  have  a  fellow  share  in  the 
strength  of  the  dray  horses,  the  happiness  of 
the  young  people,  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  ones, 
and  are  not  altogether  without  part  or  lot  in 
the  good  fortunes  of  the  Vanderbilts  and  the 
Hohenzollerns  themselves.  .  .  .  He  who, 
with  Marcus  Aurelius,  can  truly  say,  'O  Uni- 
verse, I  wish  all  that  thou  wishest,'  has  a  self 
from  which  every  trace  of  negativeness  and 
obstructiveness  has  been  removed — no  wind 
can  blow  except  to  fill  its  sails. "^ 
And  of  Such   world-encircling    sympathy, 

^°^^'  however,  is  possible  only  to  natures 

of  very  exceptional  imaginative  and  senti- 
mental power,  and  of  great  native  unselfish- 
ness. With  most  of  us  affection  is  limited  to  a 
comparatively  few  persons,  to  father  and 
mother,  to  lover  and  beloved,  to  wife  and 
child,  the  greater  restriction  of  affection  being 
compensated  for,  however,  by  a  correspond- 
ingly greater  depth  and  strength.  Such  love 
is  indeed  one  of  the  leading  sources  of  mundane 
happiness  w^hich  we  are  here  seeking  to  enu- 
merate. As  in  the  case  of  beauty,  the  energy 
and  worth  of  love  are  not  diminished  with  the 

1  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  I,  312. 
[146] 


OPTIMISM  AND   PESSIMISM 


spending,  but  only  enriched  and  strengthened. 
It  is  an  unfailing  source  of  happiness  even  when 
all  other  objects  which  yield  us  happiness  are 
gone.  But  when  love  is  gone,  life  itself  has 
largely  lost  its  meaning  and  value.  Some- 
where in  his  essay  on  Utilitarianism,  from 
which  I  have  already  quoted,  Mill  has  the 
following:  "When  people  who  are  tolerably 
fortunate  in  their  outward  lot  do  not  find  in 
life  sufficient  enjoyment  to  make  it  valuable 
for  them,  the  cause  is  generally  caring  for 
nobody  but  themselves."  We  can  go  further. 
There  is  no  gift  like  love  for  the  person  whose 
outward  circumstances  are  such  as  not  to 
afford  him  much  happiness.  And  love  is  the 
one  thing  of  which  no  man  need  be  deprived: 
for  it  is  the  only  thing  in  the  world  whose 
existence  is  contingent  on  nothing  except 
itself.  No  soil  is  too  unfriendly  to  nourish  its 
growth,  if  only  it  finds  itself  again  in  the 
response  of  another.  In  truth,  it  often  thrives 
most  luxuriantly  where  it  is  obliged  to  live  a 
precarious  outward  existence: 

"Like  a  chance-sown  plant 
Which,  cast  on  stubborn  soil,  puts  forth  changed  buds 
And  softer  stains,  unknown  in  happier  climes."  ^ 

1  Browning,  Paracelsus,  V. 
[147] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF  RELIGION 

It  outlasts  misfortune,  it  is  deepened  by  pain, 
it  is  stronger  even  than  death. 

It  is  true  that  in  a  sense  the  end  of  all  love 
is  loss,  and  the  loss  of  the  objects  of  affection 
through  death  is  perhaps  the  most  poignant 
of  human  sorrows.  Still,  the  life  visited  by 
love  and  loss  is  better  than  the  life  that  has 
never  known  either.  Moreover,  love  does 
not  cease  when  the  object  of  it  has  been 
removed.  Whether  it  still  finds  its  object 
**in  some  realms  of  help,"  behind  this  visible 
scene,  or  whether  it  nourishes  itself  on  the 
impalpable  memory  of  a  soul  that  has  yielded 
up  its  existence,  it  remains  as  a  solace  and  a 
fragrance,  to  ennoble  and  adorn  the  life  in 
which  it  has  found  a  home. 

Our  conclusions  on  the  problem  of  the  value 
of  life  have  so  far  strongly  favored  optimism. 
There  is,  however,  one  further  consideration  to 
which  we  have  not  given  very  full  attention, 
and  to  which  we  must  briefly  turn  in  con- 
clusion. 

IV 

Is  there  It  is  oftcu  Said  that  while  there 

ress?  are    doubtless    many    evidences    of 

progress  in  the  world,  this  progress  is  mainly 

[148] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

outward  progress.  The  only  kind  of  progress, 
however,  worthy  of  being  considered,  it  is 
said,  is  moral  progress.  Are  men  growing 
better  as  well  as  wiser,  wealthier  and  more 
comfortable  .f^  This  is  indeed  a  pertinent 
question  the  importance  of  which  we  can 
hardly  overrate,  and  which  we  must  seek  in 
some  way  to  answer.  Here,  as  before,  in 
discussing  the  general  problem  of  progress, 
there  are  two  classes  of  facts  which  we  can 
introduce  to  throw  light  on  the  problem.  We 
can  either  refer  to  our  direct  experience,  or 
we  can  resort  to  certain  general  lines  of  argu- 
ment of  a  scientific  kind  which  may  help  us 
to  reach  some  reasonable  conclusion.  Let 
us  follow  these  two  methods  in  the  order 
mentioned. 

It  can  of  course  be  no  task  of  the  present 
book  to  give  anything  like  an  adequate 
account  of  the  history  of  morality  with  a  view 
to  seeing  what  progress,  if  any,  has  actually 
taken  place  in  the  moral  ideals  and  prac- 
tices of  mankind  throughout  its  long  history. 
This  is  a  theme  which  would  require  a  num- 
ber of  volumes  for  its  adequate  treatment. 
Fortunately,  such  books  are  available  to- 
[149] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

day,i  and  it  needs  only  a  cursory  glance  at  one 
of  them  to  convince  even  the  most  pessimistic 
that  the  progress  in  the  moralization  and  the 
socialization  of  man,  while  often  discourag- 
ingly  tedious,  has  been,  on  the  whole,  steady 
and  cumulative.  Some  conception  of  the 
progress  in  morality  today  can  be  gained 
by  simply  reviewing  in  one's  mind  the  as- 
tounding development  in  moral  sentiment 
and  practice  which  has  taken  place  over 
the  world  within  the  memory,  even,  of  the 
present  generation.  I  have  in  mind  the 
unexampled  improvement  and  multiplication 
of  educational  agencies  of  every  kind  and 
grade,  providing  for  the  enlightenment  and 
training  of  constantly  increasing  numbers  of 
people;  the  growing  humanity  shown  to 
children,  to  prisoners,  to  defectives,  and  to 
other  weak  and  defenceless  members  of 
society;  the  extension  of  missionary  activ- 
ities, intended  to  carry  higher  forms  of  civi- 
lization into  every  part  of  the  world;  the  rapid 

I  The  most  important  one  book  on  the  history  of  morality  in  the 
English  language  is  perhaps  Westermarck's  monumental  work. 
Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas,  a  book  which  has  super- 
seded many  of  the  older  books  on  the  subject,  and  which  no  student  of 
ethics  or  anthropology  can  afiford  to  be  without. 

[150] 


OPTIMISM   AND    PESSIMISM 

growth  of  eleemosynary  institutions,  pro- 
viding for  the  care  and  comfort  of  the  aged, 
the  homeless  and  helpless;  laws  requiring 
sanitation,  the  protection  of  public  safety,  the 
isolation  of  contagious  diseases,  and  forbidding 
the  sale  of  intoxicants,  adulterated  foods  and 
drugs;  the  spread  of  public  sentiment  in  favor 
of  disarmament,  and  arbitration;  the  extension 
of  political  suffrage;  the  growing  sympathy 
for  labor  and  the  common  man;  the  abolition 
of  slavery  and  serfdom,  etc.  All  these  phe- 
nomena are  unmistakable  evidences,  I  take 
it,  of  the  growth  of  social  righteousness,  and 
the  spirit  of  human  brotherhood.  It  is  true 
that  one's  temperamental  bias,  and  one's 
eagerness  for  progress,  is  likely  to  make  one 
overestimate  somewhat  the  progress  of  social 
righteousness  which  is  taking  place.  There 
are  doubtless  many  cross-currents  and  back- 
ward eddies  in  the  great  stream  of  progress. 
But  one  is  obliged  to  believe,  on  the  basis  of 
purely  historical  and  statistical  evidence,  that 
the  main  tendency  is  forward  and  upward 
toward  a  higher  justice  and  a  larger  social 
good. 

This  belief  is  strongly  supported  by  what 
[151] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

we  know  of  the  laws  governing  moral  progress. 
This  is  a  subject  of  extreme  interest,  and  of 
the  utmost  importance,  but  we  can  again 
merely  touch  upon  it  here.  It  is  modern 
utilitarian  and  evolutionary  ethics,  strange 
as  this  may  seem  to  those  who  have  viewed 
these  types  with  suspicion,  as  making  for  a 
hard  and  materialistic  view  of  life,  that  have 
made  the  most  substantial  contributions  to 
the  theory  of  moral  optimism.  Even  a  slight 
attention  to  modern  evolutionary  ethics  will 
reveal  the  fact  that  progress  is  the  law  of  life 
in  the  realm  of  morality,  as  it  is  in  other 
realms.  We  spoke  above  of  a  process  of  nat- 
ural selection  in  nature  tending  to  favor  those 
individuals  that  happen  to  possess  traits,  like 
strength,  fleetness,  protective  covering,  sensory 
alertness,  etc.,  which  are  calculated  to  aid 
them  in  the  struggle  for  existence  in  a  more  or 
less  unfriendly  environment.  There  is  a  sim- 
ilar process  of  selection  going  on  in  the  moral 
realm,  tending  to  preserve,  not  individuals, 
as  awhile  ago,  but  types  of  moral  actions  and 
of  moral  ideals  which  have  exceptional  vital- 
ity and  "survival  value."  Moral  actions  and 
ideals  which  prove  to  have  less  value  and 
[1521 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

vitality  of  course  perish  in  the  competitive 
struggle,  like  the  less-favored  individuals  in 
the  plant  and  animal  world.  This  view  has 
been  brilliantly  worked  out  by  a  number  of 
recent  ethicists,  notably  Leslie  Stephen  and 
Sutherland  Alexander,  whose  works  are  among 
the  most  suggestive  and  interesting  in  the 
whole  literature  of  modern  ethics. '^ 

Without  following  these  writers  through 
the  details  of  their  reasonings  here,  we  may 
simply  suggest  a  few  very  elementary  con- 
siderations which  will  make  perfectly  plain, 
I  hope,  the  process  of  preferential  selection 
referred  to.  What,  for  example,  do  we  mean 
by  a  good  action?  I  think  we  mean,  in  gen- 
eral, an  action  which  has  individual  and  social 
utility,  one  which  tends  to  promote  the 
general  welfare.  And  what  do  we  mean  by  a 
bad  action?  We  mean  an  action  which  lacks 
such  utility,  or  one  which  tends  to  destroy 
social  welfare.     Now  society,  like  the  indi- 

1  Cf.  Stephen,  The  Science  of  Ethics,  and  Alexander,  Moral  Order 
and  Progress.  See  also  Spencer,  Principles  of  Ethics,  and  the  able 
work  of  Professor  Soriey,  The  Ethics  of  Naturalism.  The  ethical 
writings  of  Sidgwick,  James  Seth,  Paulsen,  Simmel,  Mezes,  Macken- 
zie, Dewey  and  Tufts,  and  Muirhead  are  also  valuable  either  for  dis- 
cussion or  criticism. 

[1531 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

vidual,  is  extremely  sensitive  to  anything 
affecting  its  welfare,  and  it  reacts  in  distinct 
and  characteristic  ways  upon  individuals  who 
seek  to  promote  that  welfare,  or  are  engaged 
in  destroying  it,  favoring  the  former  and 
punishing  the  latter.  By  a  never-ceasing 
process  of  expulsion  and  assimilation  (we  call 
the  latter  reclamation  or  reform)  society,  by 
a  life  impulse  which  we  find  in  nature  every- 
where, is  constantly  seeking  to  maintain  a 
certain  minimum  of  health  and  vitality,  much 
as  our  physical  organism  automatically  seeks 
to  assimilate  or  else  expel  a  poison  which  has 
been  taken  into  it,  and  otherwise  to  remedy  its 
weaknesses.  And  as  crime  comes  to  be  viewed 
more  and  more  in  the  light  of  a  disease  of  the 
social  tissue,  which  must  inevitably  lower 
social  vitality,  society  will  become  more  skilled 
in  its  diagnosis  and  cure,  and  eventually,  one 
hopes,  in  its  prevention;  for  here,  even  more 
than  in  the  case  of  physical  disorders,  pre- 
vention is  better  than  cure. 

The  bearing  of  this  upon  the  subject  of  the 

survival  of  good  in  the  universe  is  obvious. 

It  is  impossible  for  evil  to  exist  except  as  a 

temporary    form    of    reality.     The    criminal, 

[154] 


OPTIMISM   AND   PESSIMISM 

for  example,  always  leads  a  precarious  exist- 
ence in  society.  He  may  through  deception 
succeed  in  carrying  through  his  purposes,  and 
he  may,  by  constant  vigilance,  avoid  the  con- 
sequences for  a  time  after  his  true  character 
has  become  known.  But  he  is  ever  "a  fugi- 
tive and  a  vagabond  in  the  earth,"  with  the 
curse  of  Cain  as  his  portion,  and  unless  he 
gives  evidence  of  reform  he  may  even  come 
to  a  violent  end  at  the  hands  of  society  which 
he  has  sought  to  hurt.  The  good  man,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  constantly  favored  by 
those  whom  he  has  in  any  way  benefited  by 
his  life.  In  a  living  organism  like  society,  of 
course,  whose  internal  adjustment,  while  con- 
stantly going  on,  is  never  complete,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  good  man  should  for  a  time 
suffer,  as  the  criminal  may  for  a  time  prosper. 
But  this  can  occur  only  as  the  exception, 
never  as  the  rule.  The  law  of  the  moral 
universe  is  that  the  righteous  shall  flourish  and 
the  wicked  come  to  naught,  and  this  law  is  as 
inevitable  as  any  law  of  nature.  Goodness, 
in  other  words,  is  not  an  adventitious  element 
in  the  universe,  decreed  and  enforced  by  some 
external  lawgiver,  as  an  older  view  often  pre- 
[155] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

sented  it;  it  is  always  being  produced  and 
supported  by  an  automatic  and  self -regulating 
process  such  as  has  been  in  rough  outline 
described,  a  process  which  no  man  can  stay 
or  hinder,  which  society  as  a  whole,  even, 
cannot  alter  or  reverse,  except  at  the  peril  of 
its  own  life.  It  is  the  soul  of  the  world  that 
is  good,  as  Plato  long  ago  taught,  and  goodness 
is  the  deepest  reality  in  the  universe.  This 
was  the  united  thought  of  Greek  philosophy 
and  of  Hebrew  wisdom.  It  has  also  been  the 
sublime  faith  of  all  the  higher  religions  through- 
out the  ages,^ 

LiTERATUBE 

Alexander,  Moral  Order  and  Progress. 
Hartmann,  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious. 
Mackenzie,  A  Manual  of  Ethics,  Chapter  VII,  §  8. 
Paulsen,  A  System  of  Ethics,  Book  II,  Chapter  III. 
Schiller,  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx,  Book  III. 
Schopenhauer,  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea,  Volume 

I,  Book  IV. 
Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics. 

Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  Lectures  XV-XVII. 
Wenley,  Aspects  of  Pessimism. 

I  The  memory  of  a  good  man,  even  after  he  is  dead,  will  remain 
fresh  in  the  mind  of  posterity.  "Leo  Nickolaivitch,  the  memory 
of  your  goodness  will  never  fade  from  the  minds  of  us  orphaned 
peasants,"  was  the  inscription  on  the  white  banners  borne  by  a  great 
host  of  Russian  peasants  at  the  burial  of  the  late  Leo  Tolstoi. 

[156] 


VI 
THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH 


VI 

THE  SHADOW  OF  DEATH 

jjjy^  It  is   an   interesting   commentary 

deathtust  ^P^^  the  problem  of  the  value  of  life 
be  an  evil.  ^^iSit  its  termination  in  death  should  be 
regarded  as  the  greatest  of  evils.  Indeed,  it 
is  often  assumed  that  the  only  condition  under 
which  life  can  be  worth  living  is  that  man 
somehow  survives  the  crisis  of  death,  and 
continues  his  earthly  life  in  some  future  form 
of  existence  similar  to  the  present.  I  wish  in 
this  section  to  maintain  four  propositions,  all 
of  which  must,  I  think,  commend  themselves 
the  moment  they  are  clearly  apprehended. 
They  are  (1)  that  the  mere  assurance  of  a 
future  life  is  unimportant;  (2)  the  usual 
arguments  against  the  possibility  of  a  future 
life  are  not  coercive;  (3)  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  no  really  coercive  arguments  exist  to 
prove  a  future  life;  and  (4)  that  the  failure 
to  prove  the  existence  of  a  future  life  does 
not  render  our  present  life  valueless.  Let  us 
take  these  points  up  in  their  order. 
[  159  1 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 


The  mere 


(1)  The  mere  knowledge  that  our 
"^^"J^*"*  Hfe  continues  beyond  death  has  not 
iT^ta-  the  shghtest  bearing  upon  the  ques- 
portant.  ^^^^  ^^  Hfe's  value,  and  cannot  be 
used  either  in  the  interest  of  a  theistic  or  a  non- 
theistic  view  of  the  world,  unless  the  nature  of 
future  life  can  somehow  be  determined.  Much 
misdirection  of  learning  has  resulted  from  a 
failure  to  make  this  simple  point  clear.  The 
reason,  of  course,  why  the  question  of  immor- 
tality has  been  considered  of  such  decisive  im- 
portance for  the  evaluation  of  life  is  that  future 
life  has  been  assumed  to  be  one  of  great  felicity 
or  else  of  great  unhappiness.  Unless  we  can 
be  assured  of  this,  however,  we  do  not  get  the 
least  light  either  for  the  problem  of  the  good- 
ness of  life  or  the  goodness  of  the  universe. 
The  case  is  very  smiliar  to  the  case  of  the  belie 
in  the  existence  of  God,  a  belief  which  has 
often  been  regarded  as  very  essential  to  a 
rehgious  view  of  the  world.  Here,  too,  the 
mere  knowledge  of  God's  existence  is  abso- 
lutely without  significance  for  a  theory  of  life 
unless  we  also  know  something  of  the  nature 
of  God.  It  would  evidently  be  of  little  use 
for  a  theistic  view  of  the  world  to  believe  that 
[160] 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

God  existed,  but  that  he  was  powerless  or 
maHcious.  The  insignificance  of  merely  exis- 
tential judgments  of  this  kind  has  been  so 
much  emphasized  in  recent  philosophical 
literature  that  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  upon 
the  matter  further  here. 

Still,  future  life,  if  it  exists,  must  be  either 
prevailingly  happy  or  unhappy,  and  it  may 
be  possible  in  some  degree  to  anticipate  which 
it  will  be.  And  in  so  far  as  we  can  do  so,  the 
general  question  of  the  possibility  of  future 
life  becomes  interesting  and  important. 

(2)  Let  us  then  center  our  atten- 

Tne  argu-  ^     '' 

Slst  ^^^^    briefly   upon    the    question    of 

LTnoT"*^  this  possibility.  It  will  be  well  to  go 
conclusive.  straight  to  the  most  formidable  diffi- 
culty which  any  doctrine  of  immortality  en- 
counters. This  difficulty  arises  in  connection 
with  the  fundamental  hypothesis  of  modern 
physiological  psychology  that  conscious  life  de- 
pends upon  the  brain.  "No  psychosis  without 
a  neurosis,"  no  mental  process  without  a  corre- 
sponding nervous  process,  has  become  a  sort 
of  universal  shibboleth  in  psychological  discus- 
sions, and  has  been  supported  by  so  many 
anatomical  and  pathological  facts,  as  well  as 
12  [  161  ] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

by  observations  from  common  experience, 
that  it  has  acquired  an  almost  axiomatic 
value.  Now,  assuming  this  formula  to  ex- 
press the  ultimate  truth  as  to  the  connection 
between  mind  and  brain,  and  assuming  the 
brain  to  be  destroyed  at  death,  as  it  doubtless 
is,  what  becomes  of  the  conscious  life  of  which 
it  was  the  indispensable  condition?  Or  let  us 
take  another  case.  A  continuous  personal 
life  is  impossible  without  memory.  A  crea- 
ture, for  example,  which  did  not  have  a  mem- 
ory of  sufficient  strength  to  carry  over  its 
experiences  from  one  day  to  another  would 
not  live  one  continuous  life,  but  many  brief 
lives,  as  many  lives  as  days.  Its  life  would 
be  a  rope  of  sand;  or,  to  use  a  less  drastic 
figure,  and  one  which  would  convey  a  truer 
impression  of  the  facts,  its  life  would  be  like 
the  links  of  a  chain  which  had  been  discon- 
nected from  one  another.  Similarly,  if  death 
should  mean  an  interruption  of  personal  life 
through  the  complete  loss  of  memory,  then 
future  life,  even  if  it  existed,  would  be  valueless 
to  us,  because  it  would  be  completely  cut  off 
from  the  present  life.  But  it  is  the  present 
life  that  men  wish  to  have  continued  when  they 
[162] 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

desire  immortality.  Now  let  us  again  sup- 
pose that  the  brain  furnishes  the  indispensable 
conditions  for  memory,  as  it  is  said  to  furnish 
the  conditions  for  all  other  mental  experi- 
ences. Let  us  suppose,  with  recent  psychol- 
ogy,  that  the  retention  of  past  experience  is 
"no  mysterious  storing  up  of  an  idea  in  an 
unconscious  state.  It  is  not  a  fact  of  the 
mental  order  at  all.  It  is  a  purely  physio- 
logical phenomenon,  a  morphological  feature, 
the  presence  of  .  .  .  paths,  namely,  in  the 
finest  recesses  of  the  brain's  tissue. "^  The 
conclusion  is  so  obvious  and  natural  as  to 
make  its  formal  statement  superfluous. 

The  only  w^ay  this  difficulty  can  be  dealt 
with  is  by  striking  directly  at  its  root,  and 
denying  the  kind  of  connection  between  the 
brain  and  the  mind  which  is  asserted  by  the 
complete  dependence  theory.  Such  a  denial 
has  often  been  made  in  the  history  of  philos- 
ophy, and,  quite  recently,  by  the  very  man 
who  has  perhaps  done  more  than  any  other 
writer  in  the  English-speaking  world  for  the 
progress  of  physiological  psychology,  and  for 
the  domestication  of  the  very  principle  which 

I  James,  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  pp.  291-292. 
[163] 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGION 

has  wrought  such  havoc  with  our  traditional 
theories  of  immortahty,  the  late  William 
James.  I  shall  simply  restate  his  distinctions 
here,  and  let  them  carry  w^hatever  weight 
they  will.  In  his  little  book  called  Human 
Immortality  he  distinguishes  between  the 
productive  function  and  the  transmissive 
function  of  the  brain.  It  is  possible  that  the 
brain  does  not  produce  thought,  as  heated 
water  produces  steam,  but  that  it  merely 
transmits  it,  as  glass,  for  example,  transmits 
light,  or  a  metal  rod  transmits  heat.  The 
glass  or  the  rod  do  not  produce  light  or  heat, 
they  merely  serve  as  their  conductors  or  trans- 
mitters. This  hypothesis  is  not  contradicted 
by  the  well -known  pathological  facts  that 
structural  or  functional  disturbances  of  the 
brain  disturb  the  course  of  thought.  This  is 
to  be  expected  on  the  transmission  theory  as 
well  as  on  the  older  theorj^  of  production.  A 
window  pane  which  is  wrinkled  or  dust- 
covered  cannot  transmit  light  so  perfectly  as 
one  of  plate  glass  and  perfectly  free  from  dust. 
The  objection  might  be  made  here  that  the 
illustration  neglects  one  very  important  point 
which,  if  it  were  clearly  brought  out,  would 
[164] 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

show  the  futiHty  of  the  whole  argument.  The 
glass  would  be  proved  to  be  the  productive 
cause  of  light  if,  when  the  window  were  broken, 
the  tenant  would  be  left  in  complete  darkness. 
But  the  suggestion  made  here,  namely  that 
the  soul  lapses  into  unconsciousness  with  the 
destruction  of  the  brain,  is  precisely  the  point 
at  issue,  a  point  which,  in  the  nature  of  the 
case,  cannot  be  decided  one  way  or  the  other. 
The  materialist  might  be  right.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  might  be  as  hazardous  to  maintain 
that  there  could  be  no  consciousness  if  there 
were  no  brain  as  it  would  be  for  a  man  to 
infer  that  if  he  walked  out  of  the  house  he 
could  not  see  the  sky,  because  there  was  no 
longer  any  glass  through  which  he  could  see  it.^ 
The  transmission  theory,  it  might  be 
worth  while  to  add,  would  have  a  distinct 
advantage  over  its  rival  in  the  respect  that  it 
would  avoid  the  difficulty  of  assuming  the 
creation  and  destruction  of  consciousness 
with  the  appearance  and  disappearance  of 
each  brain.  Science  is  never  very  friendly 
to  creation  theories,  and  it  might  be  more 

» I  owe  this  clever  illustration  to  Mr.  McTaggart.     See  op.  cit., 
p.  105. 

[165] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

convenient  to  assume  that  consciousness,  like 
light,  heat,  etc.,  exists  once  and  for  all,  and, 
like  these  other  energies,  appears  only  at 
such  points  in  the  physical  order  as  it  finds 
pervious  to  the  particular  form  of  energy  which 
it  represents. 

But  neither  (3)  ^  thc  argumcuts  against  im- 

prOTlim-  mortality  are  unconvincing,  the  argu- 
mortauty.  mcuts  for  the  bcHef  are  at  least 
equally  so.  Empirical  evidence  in  the  form 
of  telepathic  communications  from  disem- 
bodied spirits  is  indeed  possible,  and  if  undis- 
puted evidence  of  this  kind  were  forthcoming 
the  supporters  of  the  belief  in  a  future  life 
would  have  a  decided  advantage  over  those 
who  oppose  it;  for,  as  Mr.  Schiller  wittily 
remarks,  while  the  ghost  of  Lord  Lyttelton 
might  admonish  his  friend  that  his  doubts  in 
the  future  were  unfounded,  no  ghost  could 
return  and  convince  us  that  future  life  was 
an  illusion.  The  evidential  value  of  the 
alleged  communications  is  so  extremely  uncer- 
tain, however,  that  the  temptation  is  strong 
to  deny  that  any  phenomena  of  the  kind  ever 
occurred  which  cannot  be  explained  on  more 
familiar  hypotheses  than  that  of  the  existence 
[1661 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

of  disembodied  spirits  who  are  able  to  enter 

into  communication  with  living  men.^ 

Theargu-  Of   thc   othcr   argumcnts    usually 

ment  from 

desire.  rcHed  upou  to  provc  a  future  life  the 

two  most  common  are  the  argument  from 
men's  desires,  and  the  moral  argument  that  a 
future  is  needed  in  which  goodness  and  hap- 
piness may  be  made  to  coincide,  and  reward 
be  adjusted  more  perfectly  to  desert  than  it  is 
in  the  present  world.  Let  us  take  up  these 
points  in  their  order. 

Nature  provides  means,  it  is  often  said, 
for  the  satisfaction  of  the  various  wants  of 
human  nature:  for  hunger  there  is  food;  for 
thirst,  drink;  for  the  need  of  companionship, 
society,  etc.  But,  on  the  other  side,  there 
are  many  desires,  some  of  them  both  legiti- 
mate and  insistent,  which  remain  permanently 
unsatisfied.  It  is  the  amazing  amount  of 
cruelty  and  loss  which  runs  through  nature 
like  a  crimson  thread  that  gives  permanent 
ground  for  the  strain  of  pessimism  which  ever 
and  anon  disturbs  our  life  with  its  plaintive 
tone  of  accusation  and  malcontent. 

» For  an  interesting  and  sympathetic  discussion  of  the  subject  of 
spirituahsm,  see  James,  The  Will  to  Believe;  for  a  hostile  criticism, 
Jastrow,  Fact  and  Fable  in  Psychology. 

[1671 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

And  from  As  TCgards  tlic  second  argument, 

the  injus- 
tice of  life,       associated  with  no  less  a  name  than 

Kant's,  that  a  future  Hfe  is  necessary  in 
order  that  justice  may  be  reaHzed,  we  have 
not  the  sHghtest  inkhng  as  to  how  such  a 
process  would  occur.  The  only  theory  of 
historical  importance  so  far  proposed,  that 
of  the  heaven  and  hell  of  traditional  theology, 
is  so  extravagant  and  sensational  in  character 
as  to  make  it  wholly  useless  for  our  purposes. 
A  moment's  thought  would  show  that  the 
ends  of  justice  cannot  be  served  by  such  fearful 
alternatives.  For  while  no  man's  life  has  been 
actually  meritorious  enough  to  be  rewarded 
through  all  eternity,  it  is  still  more  evident 
to  anyone  with  ordinary  insight  and  charity 
that  no  man,  no  matter  how  wicked,  has  de- 
served punishment  so  frightful  and  diabolical 
as  traditional  religion  has  often  represented 
it  to  be.  The  only  motives  for  punishment 
are  three:  that  of  revenge,  that  of  reclama- 
tion of  the  criminal,  and  that  of  the  protec- 
tion of  society.  The  first  motive  has  been 
all  but  abandoned  today  as  being  repugnant 
to  modern  ideas  of  justice.  The  possibility 
of  the  reclamation  of  the  sinner  is  usually 
[1681 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

excluded  in  the  theory  of  eternal  punishment. 
Nor  would  the  maintenance  of  a  punitive 
institution  of  such  terrors  as  hell  is  pictured 
to  be  appear  warranted  by  its  effects  in  deter- 
ring men  from  crime.  There  is  every  reason 
for  believing,  as  Mr.  G.  Lowes  Dickinson 
suggests,^  that  the  immediate  penalties  of 
nature  and  of  human  law  are  vastly  more 
effective  than  the  mere  idea  of  a  distant 
event,  no  matter  how  august  and  dreadful, 
the  evidence  for  which  can  never  pass  beyond 
the  stage  of  hearsay.  Certainly,  it  would  be 
a  highly  wasteful  and  arbitrary  method  of 
administering  justice  to  subject  untold  num- 
bers of  spirits  to  cruel  suffering  for  the  feeble 
and  chance  effects  which  such  suffering  might 
have  upon  a  race  of  men  too  much  bent  upon 
their  immediate  pursuits  to  be  influenced 
materially  by  a  contingency  so  remote  and 
problematical.  Fortunately,  nature  is  not 
constructed  along  the  lines  of  an  outworn 
religious  eschatology.  If  it  were,  the  future 
evils  of  an  imaginary  place  of  torment  would 
soon  become  present  evils  so  deep  and  dark  as 
to  make  life  unbearable. 

1  In  his  interesting  little  book.  Is  Immortality  Desirable? 
[169] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

The  only  other  methods  of  securing  the 
adjustment  of  merit  and  happiness,  aside 
from  those  suggested  by  a  rehgious  symboHsm, 
are  the  methods  of  gradual  approximation 
through  the  sufferings  and  rewards  entailed  by 
the  intrinsic  nature  of  human  actions.  This 
process,  as  we  saw  in  the  previous  section,  is 
constantly  going  on,  and  will  continue  to  go  on 
so  long  as  society  itself  endures.  Justice,  like 
everything  else  in  this  universe,  will  not  be  ush- 
ered in  catastrophically,  without  human  partic- 
ipation or  effort;  it  will  come,  if  at  all,  through 
the  tedious  but  certain  process  of  evolution, 
speeded  by  the  help  of  man.  Die  Weltge- 
schichte  ist  das  Weltgericht.  And  this  is  not  a 
depressing  view;  it  is  a  bracing  and  inspiring 
one.  With  no  responsibility  and  no  task,  a 
noble  and  active  mind  would  feel  slighted  and 
oppressed.  In  the  face  of  great  issues  and 
alternatives  man  rallies  his  energies  as  at  a 
promise  or  a  threat.  He  is  stimulated  to  his 
best  thoughts  and  efforts  when  he  can  feel  that 
these  are  really  needed  in  the  great  work  of 
the  world. 

The  truth  is  that  our  knowledge  of  future 
life,  if  it  exists,  is  so  defective  as  to  make  it 

[170] 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

unsafe  to  venture  an  opinion  as  to  how  justice 
will  there  be  realized,  except  by  reasoning 
from  such  data  as  are  given  in  our  present 
experience.  The  complete  absence  of  knowl- 
edge, either  positive  or  negative,  of  a  future 
life  indeed  explains  the  elaborate  theological 
theories  which  have  grown  up  concerning  it 
in  the  history  of  humanity.  The  only  limita- 
tions to  belief,  as  Professor  Stout  has  so  finely 
described,^  are  the  checks  it  receives  from 
experience,  and  from  other  beliefs  which 
enjoy  social  sanction.  In  the  absence  of 
empirical  checks,  beliefs,  especially  if  they  are 
as  stimulating  and  picturesque  as  men's  beliefs 
in  the  future,  will  grow  up  like  mushrooms,  and 
multiply  with  an  astounding  rapidity.  Their 
spontaneous  character  and  their  flimsy  con- 
struction, however,  must  be  perfectly  evident 
to  anyone  at  all  accustomed  to  the  main  results 
of  modern  psychology  and  anthropology. 
Ignorance  ^^^  ^^  ^hc  cxistcncc  of  iguoraucc 

i^ng  th™         concerning  the  future  a  cause  for  com- 
L"o7ln  plaint  or  unhappiness.    Certitude,  we 

^^'''  know,  often  means  sloth,  and  a  rea- 

sonable amount  of  intellectual  uncertainty  is 

>  In  his  Manual  of  Psychology. 
[171] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

unquestionably  necessary  for  the  zest  and 
watchfulness  which  life  so  much  needs: 

"Just  so  much  of  doubt 
As  bade  me  plant  a  surer  foot  upon 

The  sun-road, set  my  heart 

Trembling  so  much  as  warned  me  I  stood  there 
On  sufferance."  ^ 

Powers  subjected  to  no  strain,  as  has  often 
been  observed,  atrophy  and  eventually  disap- 
pear. With  complete  certainty,  either  of  our 
fortunes  or  our  fate,  might  come  a  flagging  of 
interest  and  a  relaxing  of  energies  which  would 
simulate  closely  the  "sleep  and  the  forgetting" 
of  which  we  stand  so  much  in  dread. 

(4)  The  assertion  that  life  is  not 

If  unmortal-  ^     ' 

ityisnot        worth  living  unless  we  can  have  the 

true,  life  c3 

bse^rs"*  assurance  of  immortality  must,  upon 
value.  reflection,  be  regarded  as  hasty  and 

unreasonable.  To  anyone  who  claims  eternal 
happiness  as  a  right  we  might  well  reply  in 
the  blustering  rhetoric  of  Carlyle:  "I  tell  thee» 
blockhead,  it  all  comes  of  thy  vanity;  of  what 
thou  fanciest  those  same  deserts  of  thine  to  be. 
Fancy  that  thou  deservest  to  be  hanged  (as  is 
most  likely),  thou  wilt  feel  it  happiness  to  be 

1  Browning,  Paracelsus. 

[1721 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

only  shot;  fancy  that  thou  deservest  to  be 
hanged  in  a  hair  halter,  it  will  be  luxury  to 
die  in  hemp.  .  .  What  act  of  legislature 
was  there  that  ihou  shouldst  be  happy?  A 
little  while  ago  thou  hadst  no  right  to  he 
at  all."i 

The  contention  that  a  future  life  is  neces- 
sary in  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  give 
an  ethical  interpretation  to  the  universe 
would  have  weight  only  in  the  event  of  the 
complete  failure  of  the  present  life.  But 
that  the  present  life  is  not  such  a  failure  is 
the  thesis  which  the  whole  of  the  previous 
section  was  meant  to  support.  And  if  life 
were  a  failure,  we  should  still  have  to  show 
that  a  future  existence  would  promise  a  great 
improvement  over  the  present  one.  But 
this  we  could  not  do,  for  the  only  data  which 
philosophy  has  to  work  with,  those  of  present 
experience,  would  by  hypothesis  be  worthless 
for  such  an  undertaking.  If  the  part  of  the 
world  which  we  know  is  rational  and  just,  then 
the  parts  unknown  to  us  may  be  inferred  to 
be  so  too.  But  if  the  part  we  know  is  unjust, 
I  do  not  see  what  grounds  we  have  for  believ- 

>  Sartor  Resartus,  The  Everlasting  Yea. 
[  173  ] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

ing  that  the  remainder  is  more  promising. 
Here,  as  everywhere,  we  must  keep  our  feet 
on  the  soKd  ground  of  experience  at  the  risk 
of  harboring  fables  and  illusions.  To  the 
philosopher,  as  Paulsen  somewhere  wittily 
says,  all  paths  to  truth  are  open,  only  not 
the  path  through  the  air. 

And  the  ^^^  Very  commou  error  in  con- 

effectsof        nection  with  death  is  that  we  are 

life  are 

not  lost.  prone  to  over-estimate  the  actual 
amount  of  genuine  loss  which  death  entails. 
Have  we  not  already  lived  and  can  anything 
which  has  been  ever  cease  to  be?  The  minute 
researches  of  sciences  have  tended  to  show 
that  not  a  particle  of  the  matter  and  energy 
in  the  universe  is  ever  lost.  Then  shall  spirit- 
ual energy,  the  things  for  which  we  have 
worked,  and  the  ideals  for  which  we  have 
truly  striven,  come  to  nothing  .^^  We  may 
answer  in  the  words  of  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra: 

"Fool!    Allthat  is,  at  all, 
Lasts  ever,  past  recall; 
What  entered  into  thee, 
That  was,  is,   and  shall  be." 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  continuance  of 
our  individual  identity,  it  is  certain  that  our 

[174] 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

physical  and  mental  traits  largely  reappear  in 
our  posterity.  And  the  products  of  our  minds 
and  our  hands,  souvenirs,  as  it  were,  of  our 
spiritual  life,  may  long  survive  our  individual 
extinction.  But  how  long  will  they  survive? 
As  long  as  they  deserve  to.  As  everywhere 
else,  nature  here  will  not  destroy  that  which 
by  its  constitution  and  inner  vitality  is  fitted 
to  survive,  just  as  society  does  not  destroy 
what  it  finds  suited  to  its  needs.  What 
remains,  then,  is  after  all  those  lives  and  those 
parts  of  lives  which  we  should  desire  to  have 
remain.  It  is  clear  that  some  men's  desire 
for  immortality  cannot  be  realized  in  a  right- 
eous universe,  these  desires  often  being  for 
the  continuance  of  the  immediate  and  more 
or  less  private  and  even  selfish  interests  which 
characterize  them.  The  necessity  of  death, 
it  will  appear  here,  is  simply  due  to  the  fact 
that  man  is  but  a  small  part  of  an  immensely 
vaster  scheme  of  things,  whose  interests  and 
purposes  he  does  not,  even  at  his  best,  ever 
completely  represent.  His  death,  then,  in  so 
far  as  he  suffers  death,  is  due  to  his  finitude, 
his  imperfection.  As  thus  finite  and  imper- 
fect, he  must  succumb  to  the  greater  power  and 
[175] 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   RELIGION 

the  higher  good.  And  to  such  subordination 
of  the  lesser  to  the  greater,  the  worse  to  the 
better,  no  one  can  rightly  object.  The  life 
which  is  but  an  empty  shell,  into  which  no 
thought  of  good  has  ever  entered,  ought  to 
perish,  the  sooner  the  better.  As  Goethe 
finely  says: 

"Wer  keinen  Namen  sich  erwarb,  noch  Edles  will, 
Gehort  den  Elementen  an :  so  f ahret  hin ! 
Verdienst  und  Treue  wahrt  uns  die  Natur." 

On  the  other  hand,  a  true  life,  if  it  is  sin- 
cerely and  gracefully  lived,  cannot  be  wasted. 
And  this  remains  true  whether  we  regard  death 
as  truly  fatal,  or  whether  we  view  it  as  merely 
the  opening  of  a  fresh  phase  of  a  never-ending 
existence.  Do  we  consider  rare  cloud  effects 
as  worthless  features  of  the  world  because  we 
know  them  to  be  evanescent.'^  Or  do  we 
regard  an  exquisite  melody  as  wasted  because 
its  fragile  loveliness  does  not  survive  the 
fleeting  moment?  Is  it  a  loss  that  a  flower 
should  have  blossomed  even  if  its  beauty  and 
fragrance  disappear  with  the  passing  of  spring.^ 
The  value  of  many  things  in  fact  depends 
almost  entirely  upon  their  transient  and  uncer- 
tain existence.  A  world  bereft  of  sunsets, 
[176] 


THE   SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

music  and  flowers  would  have  lost  much  of 
its  loveliness  and  interest;  but  what  a  world 
would  be  in  which  these  had  become  permanent 
and  constant  features  it  is  somewhat  startling 
to  contemplate.  We  have  after  all  not  passed 
far  beyond  the  attitude  of  peevish  children 
who  refuse  to  come  in  at  nightfall  after  they 
have  played  outdoors  all  day.  It  seems  much 
like  ingratitude  and  blasphemy  to  condemn 
the  present  life  because  we  cannot  live  always, 
especially  since  it  contains  so  much,  after  all, 
which  is  great  and  good. 

"Is  it  so  small  a  thing 
To  have  enjoyed  the  sun. 
To  have  lived  light  in  the  spring, 
To  have  loved,  to  have  thought,  to  have  done. 
To  have  advanced  true  friends,  and  beat  down  baflBing 
foes?"i 

It  would,  of  course,  be  the  merest 

But  prema- 
ture death  is     affectation   to   deny  that  premature 

death,  whatever  may  be  said  about 
death  after  the  work  of  life  has  been  fairly 
accomplished,  must,  under  any  view,  appear 
unjust  and  wasteful.  Such  death  comes  as 
the  end  of  our  enthusiasms,  the  violent  inter- 
rupter of  all  our  plans  and  hopes.     And  this 

I  Matthew  Arnold,  Empedocles  on  Aetna. 
13  [  177  1 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

is  both  unfortunate  and  sad.  As  Browning 
says  in  Paracelsus,  that  noble  work  of  his 
youth,  which  contains  so  much  that  is  fine 
and  wonderful: 

"How  very  full 
Of  wormwood  'tis,  that  just  at  altar  service, 
The   rapt   hymn   rising   with   the   rolling  smoke, 
When  glory  dawns  and  all  is  at  the  best. 
The  sacred  fire  may  flicker  and  grow  faint 
And  die  for  want  of  a  wood-piler's  help ! 
Thus  fades  the  flagging  body,  and  the  soul 
Is  pulled  down  in  the  overthrow," 

Fortunately  for  human  happiness,  the  desires 
of  life,  and  its  zest,  fail  with  the  failure  of  our 
powers  and  the  loss  of  usefulness.  And  if 
the  individual  has  lived  his  life  out,  and  con- 
tributed what  he  could  to  the  world,  he  ought 
to  be  ready  to  yield  up  his  being  without  mur- 
mur or  complaint,  and  even  with  thankfulness 
for  whatever  good  things  life  may  have  brought 
him.  This  spirit  of  graceful  resignation  is 
finely  expressed  by  Walter  Savage  Landor  in 
the  epitaph  written  for  himself: 

"I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife; 
Nature  I  loved  and  next  to  nature,  art; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life; 
It  sinks  and  I  am  ready  to  depart." 
f  178] 


THE   SHADOW  OF   DEATH 

There  will   always   be  men,   it  is 

The  condi- 
tions of  true,  who  will  feel  a  future  existence 

possible  'IP  p       1      • 

survival  of      lu  the  fomi  of  their  posterity  and 

mind. 

their  influence  and  works  to  be  empty 
and  unattractive.  Whether  this  feeling  is 
due  to  a  lack  of  imagination  or  to  selfishness  or 
to  both,  it  doubtless  has  to  be  reckoned  with. 
And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  life  which  is 
able  to  witness  the  realization  of  its  interests 
is  vastly  more  valuable  from  a  human  point 
of  view  than  a  life  which  is  shut  up  to  the 
enjoyment  of  the  mere  prospect  of  such  reali- 
zation. This  is  the  element  of  truth  in  the 
assertion  one  often  hears  that  immortality, 
in  order  to  be  worth  having,  must  be  personal. 
It  may  be  well,  therefore,  in  conclusion,  to 
state  briefly  the  basis  on  which  a  belief  in 
such  survival  must  rest. 

We  sought,  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  book,' 
to  maintain  the  proposition  that  matter,  and 
the  whole  physical  scheme  of  things,  have  no 
ultimate  and  independent  existence,  no  exist- 
ence, that  is,  apart  from  minds  which  experi- 
ence them.  Nothing  in  the  universe  exists, 
we  said,  except  minds  and  their  experiences. 

I  In  Section  III. 
[179] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

WTiether  this  radical  thesis  of  ideaHsm  be 
accepted  or  not,  it  is  probably  certain  that 
there  would  be  no  such  thing  as  value  in  the 
world  apart  from  sentient  appreciation  or 
desire.  The  most  serious  thing  that  could 
happen  to  the  universe,  therefore,  would  be 
that  the  conscious  selves  in  it  should  disappear. 
Then  all  its  values,  whether  they  were  the 
values  of  the  ordinary  goods  of  life,  which 
satisfy  our  common  desires,  or  the  higher 
values  of  truth,  beauty  and  goodness,  would 
be  destroyed  and  all  things  alike  be  reduced  to 
a  colorless  and  indistinguishable  mediocrity. 
The  visible  scene  of  this  world,  so  complex 
in  its  inner  structure,  and  so  vast  in  its  ulti- 
mate reaches,  would,  in  respect  to  its  value 
and  significance,  be  of  no  more  interest  than 
a  monstrous  heap  of  dust  and  ashes.  And  all 
the  works  of  man,  precious  treasures  of  an 
immemorial  past,  meant  to  be  only  the  small 
beginnings  of  a  still  wealthier  store,  would 
fall  in  irretrievable  ruin.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  such  disaster  could  overtake  us 
in  a  imiverse  which  has  been  so  far  friendly  to 
our  interests.  For  minds  do  exist  in  the  uni- 
verse, and  prosper  in  it.  And  if  mind  has 
[180] 


THE   SHADOW   OP  DEATH 

anything  like  the  strategic  place  in  the  world 
which  we  have  claimed  for  it,  it  is  inconceiv- 
able that  it  should  be  annihilated  so  long  as 
the  fundamental  structure  of  the  world  re- 
mains what  it  is.  Still,  such  an  accident  might 
occur,  and  there  seems  ultimately  no  reason 
which  we  can  give  why  it  could  not  except  the 
one  which  Tennj^son  suggests  in  his  incom- 
parable threnody,  the  fundamental  justice  of 
things.  "Thou  has  made  him.  Thou  art  just."^ 
And  of  the  But,  it  uiay  be  objected  here,  we 

mind.  have    so    far    vindicated    only    the 

survival  of  mind  as  such;  some  minds,  or 
God's  mind.  But  what  each  man  is  after 
all  passionately  interested  in  is  the  contin- 
uance of  his  individual  mind.  That  this  is 
true  cannot  be  denied.  The  piteous  cry  of  a 
soul  contemplating  the  annihilation  of  its 
identity  has  never  been  uttered  with  a  more 
heart-rending  power  than  by  Browning: 

"  God !     Thou  art  mind !     Unto  the  master  mind 
IVIind  should  be  precious .     Spare  my  mind  alone ! 
All  else  I  wdll  endure;  if,  as  I  stand 
Here,  with  my  gains,  thy  thunder  smite  me  down, 

1 1  owe  this  reference  to  a  friend  whom  I  had  asked  to  give  me  a 
reason,  no  matter  how  bad,  for  beUeving  in  immortality.  She  repUed 
in  the  lines   of  In  Memoriam: 

"  He  thinks  he  was  not  made  to  die. 
And  thou  hast  made  him,  thou  art  just." 

[181] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

I  bow  me;  'tis  thy  will,  thy  righteous  will; 

I  o'erpass  life's  restrictions,  and  I  die; 

And  if  no  trace  of  my  career  remain 

Save  a  thin  corpse  at  pleasure  of  the  wind 

In  these  bright  chambers  level  with  the  air, 

See  thou  to  it!     But  if  my  spirit  fail. 

My  once  proud  spirit  forsake  me  at  the  last, 

Hast  thou  done  well  by  me?     So  do  not  thou ! 

Crush  not  my  mind,  dear  God,  though  I  be  crushed!" 

Under  what  conditions,  if  any,  will  the  indi- 
vidual self  likely  survive?  The  answer  to 
this  momentous  question  has  already  been 
partly  suggested  in  another  connection.  The 
only  condition  under  which  life  as  we  know 
it  on  earth  survives  is  that  it  be  adjusted 
to  the  environment  in  which  it  exists.  We 
need  not  raise  the  old  question  here  whether 
the  individual  must  adjust  himself  to  his 
environment,  or  whether  he  can  adjust  the 
environment  to  himself,  or  whether  both 
processes  may  take  place.  ^  The  adjustment 
must,  in  any  case  occur.  This  gives  us  an 
interesting  clue  to  the  answer  to  the  question 
of  the  immortality  of  the  individual  soul. 
It  will  survive  provided  it  stands  in  har- 
monious relations  with  what  is  deepest  and 

>  I  have  discussed  this  question  at  some  length  in  my  book.  The 
Culture  of  Religion,  Section  I. 

[182] 


THE    SHADOW   OF   DEATH 

most  normative  in  the  universe.  Even  if  a 
self  which  does  not  stand  in  such  harmonious 
relations  should  survive,  its  survival  could 
bring  it  no  happiness,  but  only  continuous 
disappointment  and  loss,  a  disappointment 
and  loss  directly  in  proportion  to  its  persist- 
ence in  a  losing  conflict.  This  is  the  element 
of  truth  in  the  traditional  dogma  of  eternal 
punishment  which  has  given  it  such  vitality 
through  all  the  passing  years.  The  conditions 
of  immortality,  then,  are  at  once  simple  and 
difficult.  The  two  things  which  seem  to  be 
requisite  are  a  knowledge  of  the  true  structure 
and  purpose  underlying  the  universe  in  which 
our  lot  is  cast,  and  an  identification  of  our 
interests  with  those  elements  in  it  which  are 
most  lasting  and  significant.  In  the  noble 
symbolism  of  Christian  scripture,  we  must 
lay  up  treasures  in  heaven  where  neither 
moth  nor  rust  doth  corrupt,  and  where  thieves 
do  not  break  through  nor  steal. 

Immortality,  it  follows  from  this,  may  then 
be  conditional  and  a  matter  of  degree.  More- 
over, it  is  not  something  which  is  thrust  upon 
us,  whether  we  will  or  no.  It  is,  as  the  Ger- 
mans say,  not  a  Gabe,  but  an  Aufgabe,  not  a 
gift,  but  a  task.  As  Professor  A.  E,  Taylor 
[183] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

finely  says:  "A  future  existence  is  not  a 
heritage  into  which  we  are  safe  to  step  when 
the  times  comes,  but  a  conquest  to  be  won 
by  the  strenuous  devotion  of  hfe  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  a  rich,  and  at  the  same  time  orderly 
and  harmonious,  moral  selfhood.  And  thus 
the  belief  in  a  future  life,  in  so  far  as  it  acts 
in  any  given  case  as  a  spur  to  such  strenuous 
living,  might  be  itself  a  factor  in  bringing 
about  its  own  fulfilment. "^  The  situation, 
it  will  be  seen,  is  such  as  to  call  out  one's 
best  knowledge  and  powers.  And  the  pros- 
pect, though  not  entirely  free  from  shadows, 
is  to  me,  I  confess,  both  interesting  and  grand. 

Literature 

Dickinson,  Is  Immortality  Desirable? 

Fichte,  The  Vocation  of  Man,  Book  III. 

Fiske,  The  Destiny  of  Man;  Life  Everlasting, 

Eraser,  Philosophy  of  Theism,  Part  III,  Lecture  V. 

James,  Human  Immortality. 

Martineau,  A  Study  of  Religion,  Book  IV. 

McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  Chapter  III. 

Myers,  Science  and  a  Future  Life, 

Ostwald,  Individuality  and  Immortality. 

Royce,  The  Conception  of  Immortality, 

Santayana,  The  Life  of  Reason,  Reason  in  Reb'gion, 

Chapters  XIII-XIV. 
Schiller,  Humanism,  Chapters  XIII-XV. 
Seth,  Ethical  Principles,  Part  III,  Chapter  III. 

1  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  358. 
[184] 


VII 
RELIGION  AND  MORALITY 


VII 

RELIGION  AND  MORALITY 

The  nature  The  subjcct  which  I  wish  to  discuss 

issue.  briefly  in  this  section  is  the  much 

debated  one  of  the  nature  and  extent  of  the 
influence  of  rehgion  upon  the  ideas  and  stand- 
ards of  morahty.  The  question  interests 
us  in  connection  with  one  of  the  central 
problems  of  our  discussion,  the  problem  of 
progress.  One  of  the  most  important  kinds 
of  progress,  we  saw,  is  moral  progress.  To 
anyone,  therefore,  who  is  seeking  to  estimate 
the  place  and  validity  of  religion  in  modern 
life,  the  question  of  the  relations  of  religion 
to  morality  becomes  one  of  considerable 
importance. 

Two  rather  distinct  and  incompatible  views 
have  been  held  by  writers  on  the  subject, 
the  one  holding  that  religion  and  morality 
are  essentially  and  organically  related,  and 
that  religion  has  tended  to  improve  morality, 
the  other,  that  the  relation  between  the  two 
is  merely  accidental,  and  that  morality  would 
be  better  off  if  separated  from  religious  affilia- 
[187] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

tions.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that  Wilhelm  von 
Humboldt  wrote:  Wahre  Tugend  ist  unver- 
trdglich  mit  auf  Autoritdt  geglaubter  Religion. 
It  is  usually  safe  to  assume  that  when  two 
parties  are  so  radically  and  invincibly  divided 
on  a  topic  as  old  as  the  present  one  some 
distinctions  are  in  order.  It  will  be  well, 
therefore,  to  simplify  the  problem  by  definitely 
excluding  a  number  of  side  issues  which  do 
not  seem  to  have  direct  relevancy  to  the 
problem  in  hand. 

(1)  The  question  we  are  here  to  consider 
is  not  whether  morality  could  exist  without 
religion.  It  is  very  clear  that  it  could.  Moral 
laws  and  usages,  as  we  had  occasion  to  point 
out  in  another  connection,^  are  indispensable 
conditions  of  human  welfare,  and  a  society 
which  showed  no  bias  or  preference  for  types 
of  actions  tending  to  realize  individual  and 
social  welfare  could  not  long  continue  to 
exist.  But  all  this  is  absolutely  irrelevant 
to  the  question  we  are  here  seeking  to  determ- 
ine, which  is  the  influence  of  religion  upon 
morality  under  the  existing  condition  of  their 
mutual   relation   and   interpenetration.     The 

1  Cf .  Section  V. 
[188] 


RELIGION   AND   MORALITY 

case  is  very  similar  to  that  of  the  influence 
of  fine  art  upon  morahtj^  It  is  perfectly 
evident  that  morality  could  exist  without  the 
influence  upon  it  of  fine  art.  But  whether 
it  does  so  exist  is  of  course  improbable  to  the 
last  degree.  Religion  and  morality  both 
have  their  roots  in  certain  ideas,  emotions  and 
impulses  of  the  mind.  And  all  we  know  of 
the  mind,  of  the  fluid  and  processional  char- 
acter of  its  contents,  and  its  more  or  less 
complete  organization  and  integration,  should 
make  us  suspect  in  advance  any  theory  of 
the  complete  separation  of  the  elements  in 
question.  Such  a  theory  seems  to  rest  upon 
an  older  departmental  or  faculty  conception 
of  the  mind,  with  its  water-tight  compart- 
ments, a  type  which  has  long  since  been  cast 
into  the  junk  heap,  along  with  other  disused 
conceptions. 

(2)  Neither  are  we  called  upon  to  defend 
the  view  that  the  influence  of  religion  upon 
morality  has  been  uniform  at  various  stages 
of  their  history,  still  less  that  the  influence 
of  religion  upon  moral  standards  and  ideas 
has  always  been  to  elevate  them.  Anthropol- 
ogists are  pretty  well  agreed  today  that  the 
[189] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

connection  between  the  two  elements  has  at 
certain  stages  in  the  development  of  society 
been  a  pretty  loose  one,  and  that  their  mutual 
influence  has  sometimes  been  practically 
negligible.^  This  was  especially  the  case 
among  primitive  peoples  whose  gods  were 
often  non-moral  and  even  immoral  in  char- 
acter. The  conduct  prescribed  by  such  reli- 
gions is  frequently  ceremonial  rather  than 
ethical.  Moral  conduct  is  less  important 
than  the  proper  performance  of  rites,  the 
recitation  of  formulas,  and  respect  for  the 
taboo.  But  this  is  a  rather  different  question 
from  that  of  the  influence  of  religion  upon 
morals  when  religion  is  taken  in  the  large,  or 
in  its  more  modern  and  developed  forms. 

(3)  It  is  also  hardly  germane  to  our  prob- 
lem to  assert  that  there  are  many  men  of 
exemplary  character  whose  conduct  is  in 
no  wise  influenced  by  religious  considerations. 
One  may  well  doubt  whether  many  such  men 
exist.  It  seems  to  me  rather  a  psychological 
impossibility  for  any  individual  so  completely 

1  Cf.  for  a  discussion  of  this  point  the  following:  Fowler  and  Wilson, 
The  Principles  of  Morals,  p.  S44;  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  p.  368; 
Brinton,  Religions  of  Primitive  Peoples,  and  the  literature  cited  at  the 
end  of  this  section. 

[190  1 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 

to  isolate  himself  from  the  community  in 
which  he  grows  up  as  not  to  be  influenced, 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  by  the 
ideas  and  usages  which  have  all  his  life  sur- 
rounded him.  But  I  do  not  wish  to  discuss 
the  matter  further  here.^  The  possible  exist- 
ence of  such  individuals  is  a  purely  academic 
question.  Our  more  modest  and  more  practi- 
cal task  is  to  determine  the  kind  and  the 
extent  of  the  influence  of  religious  ideas  upon 
the  character  of  men  who  actually  hold  them, 
that  is,  upon  the  majority  of  mankind. 

(4)  The  general  question  of  a  possible 
beneficent  effect  of  religion  upon  morality 
should  not  be  unduly  prejudiced  by  the  fact 
that  the  modes  of  conduct  prescribed  by  vari- 
ous religions  have  been  various  and  often  self- 
contradictory.  They  undoubtedly  have.  But 
so  have  the  laws  of  various  legislative  bodies  in 
the  history  of  legislation  often  been  inconsistent 
and  contradictory.  But  no  one  would  wish  to 
infer  from  this  that  the  influence  of  law  has  on 
the  whole  been  detrimental  to  morality. 

(o)  Xor  is  the  ethical  influence  of  religion 

1  Cf .  for  a  fair  discussion  of  this  point  Pfleiderer,  Philosophy  and 
Development  of  Religion,  Vol.  I,  p.  57  ff. 

[1911 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

disproved  by  showing  that  immoral  acts 
have  been  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  reHgion. 
That  they  have  is  a  well-authenticated  fact. 
But  it  is  not  quite  clear  what  conclusion  one 
is  expected  to  draw  from  that  fact.  It  would 
surely  be  hazardous  to  conclude  that  it  is  the 
tendency  of  religion  to  produce  criminals,  or 
to  make  evil  preponderate  over  goodness. 

The  only  way  in  which  religion  could 
depress  the  general  level  of  morality  would  be 
for  it  to  advocate  and  seek  to  enforce  immoral 
maxims  and  practices  and  to  disseminate 
false  views  of  the  world  and  of  life,  or  else  to 
retard  progress  by  opposing  intellectual  and 
ethical  advance.  That  religion  is  guilty  of 
both  offences  is  a  charge  which  one  occasion- 
ally hears.  And  there  is  probably  no  doubt 
that  misguided  religionists  have  done  much 
harm  to  the  cause  of  progress  by  claiming 
religious  sanctions  for  sundry  irrational  ideas 
and  practices.  1     How  this  might  be  possible 

1  For  a  rather  unfavorable  view  of  religion  in  this  respect,  see  Brin- 
ton,  op.  cit.,  p.  230  fF.  A  somewhat  more  circumspect  account  is 
given  in  Jastrow,  The  Study  of  Religion.  For  concrete  illustrations 
of  the  general  relation  between  religion  and  secular  culture  see  the 
monumental  works  of  Draper  and  of  A.  D.  White,  A  History  of  the 
Conflict  between  Religion  and  Science,  and  A  History  of  the  Warfare 
of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom.  The  latter  work  espe- 
cially is  one  of  much  erudition  and  entrancing  interest. 

[192] 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 

will,  I  hope,  become  more  explicit  as  we  seek 
to  determine  somewhat  more  positively  the 
general  sort  of  influence  which  religion  exerts 
upon  the  rest  of  a  man's  life. 
Reu  on  ^^  ^^^^  pcrhaps  aid  us  to  do  this 

™J!"^^  if   we    recall    the    main    theoretical, 

ethical 

attitudes.  emotional  and  active  features  which 
we  found  religion,  especially  in  its  higher 
forms,  to  contain.  We  proposed,  as  a  sort  of 
general  description  of  religion,  the  statement 
that  it  was  an  emotion  based  upon  the  con- 
viction that  the  events  of  the  universe  are 
controlled  in  view  of  a  supreme  and  lasting 
good,  and  an  attitude  of  cooperation  with  the 
Power  in  the  universe  making  for  this  good. 
Religion,  we  said,  in  the  first  place  offers  a 
certain  theory  of  the  world  which  purports  to 
be  true;  and  second,  it  contains  certain  ethical 
or  mandatory  features  which  seek  to  bind 
men's  conduct. 
Thehisto-  That  moral  codes  are  intimately 

rical  connec-  ,  .  i  ■     •  .  -t  i   • 

tion  between      aSSOCiatcd    With    rcllglOU    lU    tllC    lllS- 

and  morauty.  tory  of  morality,  moral  laws  being 
conceived  as  divine  commands,  is  a  fact  too 
notorious  to  require  support  or  argument  here. 
The  Hebrew  religion,  whose  moral  code  was 
14  [  193  ] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

ascribed  directly  to  the  will  of  God,  is  perhaps 
the  clearest  and  best-known  example.  Ac- 
cording to  some  writers,  all  the  important 
historical  systems  of  morality  have  been  thus 
associated  with  religious  ideas  and  sanctions; 
in  other  words,  the  historical  connection 
between  religion  and  morality,  whatever  may 
be  said  of  their  intrinsic  connection,  has  been 
universal.  The  actual  force  of  theological 
beliefs  over  conduct  has  doubtless  often  been 
overestimated.  As  a  consequence  of  this, 
there  is  at  present  a  decided  tendency  to  under- 
estimate their  influence.  One  hears  much 
nowadays  of  the  autonomy  of  the  moral  life. 
The  motives  for  moral  action,  it  is  said,  are 
human  motives  like  the  happiness  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  of  society.  And  even  when  action 
is  not  consciously  motived  at  all,  as  it  fre- 
quently is  not,  it  can  be  explained  by  a  rich 
background  of  instincts,  impulses  and  habits 
which  furnish  the  driving  forces,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  moral  life.  The  active  life  of  an  individ- 
ual has  a  large  amount  of  intrinsic  tendency, 
strain  and  thrust,  and  it  maintains  itself,  and 
continues  its  progress,  without  the  religious 
[194  1 


The  motives 
of  action : 
sanctions 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 

motivation   of   which   we   have   in    the   past 
made  so  much. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  there  is 
an  important  element  of  truth  in 
of  morality.  |.j^jg  contcution.  Mauy  actions  are 
doubtless  motived  by  a  desire  for  the  welfare 
of  the  individual,  and  of  those  who  surround 
him,  without  reference  to  extra-mundane  con- 
sequences; many  more  are  aimed  at  particular 
objects  without  much  thought  even  of  their 
bearing  upon  welfare  either  present  or  future; 
still  others  are  due  to  various  instincts  and 
impulses  which  crave  expression,  and  which 
get  themselves  expressed  without  much  inter- 
ference on  the  part  of  consciousness.  In 
other  words,  there  is  much  that  is  merely  sub- 
conscious or  even  automatic  in  conduct,  which 
it  has  been  the  merit  of  modern  ethics  clearly 
to  point  out. 

The  motivation  of  human  conduct,  as  will 
be  seen,  is  a  highlj^  complicated  affair,  and 
cannot  be  explained  by  the  exclusive  employ- 
ment of  any  one  principle  of  motivation  or  a 
single  sanction.  It  will  therefore  be  helpful 
if  we  make  at  this  point  a  rather  complete 
inventory  of  the  various  dynamic  influences 
[195] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

which  act  as  the  driving  forces  of  human  con- 
duct. These  may  be  divided,  in  the  first 
place,  into  habits  and  ideas,  using  habits 
roughly  to  stand  for  the  whole  category  of 
impulses,  instincts,  acquired  habits,  and  other 
forms  of  automatic  or  semi-automatic  forms 
of  motivation  referred  to  above,  and  ideas  for 
the  more  or  less  clearly  conceived  considera- 
tions which  prompt  us  to  a  given  kind  of 
conduct.  Ethical  writers,  since  the  time  of 
Bentham,  have  been  accustomed  to  divide  the 
latter  kind  of  motives,  or  "sanctions,"  as  they 
are  often 'called,  into  four  great  classes:  (a) 
Physical  sanctions,  such  as  the  remembered 
ill  feeling  following  a  debauch;  (b)  legal,  such 
as  legal  punishment;  (c)  social,  such  as 
public  opinion;  and  (d)  religious,  such  as  the 
hope  of  divine  approval,  and  the  fear  of  pun- 
ishment. The  religious  sanctions,  it  will  be 
observed,  are  closely  related  to  the  legal  and 
social,  inasmuch  as  the  approval  and  good 
opinion  of  God  are  sought,  as  well  as  the  pun- 
ishment and  reward  of  the  divine  law  are 
dreaded  and  hoped  for.  The  religious  sanc- 
tions might  accordingly  be  divided  into  two 
kinds,  the  lower  and  the  higher,  the  fear  of 
[196] 


RELIGION   AND   MORALITY 


punishment  and  the  hope  of  reward,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  motives  of  love  and  rever- 
ence, on  the  other.  The  progressive  substi- 
tution of  the  higher  motives  for  the  lower  ones 
with  the  advance  of  culture  and  sophistication 
marks  the  evolution  of  religion  from  its  lower 
to  its  higher  forms.  In  the  higher  and  more 
refined  forms  of  the  religious  mood  we  are 
prompted  to  conform  ourselves  to  God's  will 
because  we  reverence  and  love  him  rather  than 
because  we  hope  for  rewards  or  fear  his  pun- 
ishment, much  as  in  the  higher  relations 
between  parents  and  children,  established  by  a 
long  process  of  educative  treatment,  obedience 
on  the  part  of  children  is  rendered  freely,  love 
having  cast  out  fear.  In  the  higher  regions  of 
of  morality,  indeed,  as  the  poet  Schiller  so  elo- 
quently urged,  the  sharp  contrast  between  duty 
and  inclination,  law  and  freedom,  becomes 
more  and  more  obscured:  not  inclination  and 
duty,  but  inclination  to  duty,  is  the  ideal  con- 
stitution of  man.  Thus  grace  and  beauty  of 
conduct  supplant  the  unlovely  austerity  of  the 
life  of  reluctant  obedience  to  duty.  Everyone 
has  known  some  of  those  attractive  characters 
from   whose  life  every  trace  of  discord  and 

[197] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

obstruction  has  been  removed,  for  whom  duty 
has  become  a  grateful  and  pleasant  exercise: 

"Glad  hearts  without  reproach  or  blot, 
Who  do  Thy  work  and  know  it  not." 

Such  personalities  are  indeed  the  ripest  fruit 
of  moral  discipline.  "When  we  see  a  soul," 
says  Emerson,  "whose  acts  are  regal,  graceful, 
and  pleasant  as  roses,  we  must  thank  God  that 
such  things  can  be  and  are,  and  not  turn 
sourly  on  the  angel  and  say:  Crump  is  the 
better  man,  with  his  grunting  resistance  to 
all  his  native  devils." 
^  ,. .  The  statement,  however,  that  ac- 

Religion  '  ' 

primarily  a         ^Jq^s    aTC    oftCU    UlOtivcd    Or    chcckcd 

conservative 

influence.  ^^  rcKgious  cousidcratious  does  not 
after  all  carry  us  far.  All  depends,  of  course, 
upon  the  character  of  the  actions  which  reli- 
gion sanctions,  or  of  which  it  disapproves. 
A  common  opinion,  for  example,  associates 
religion  with  moral  progress,  either  holding 
that  all  moral  codes  orginated  in  the  will  of 
God,  or  under  some  sort  of  religious  auspices, 
or  else  suggesting  that  religion  has  much  to 
do  with  the  initiation  of  ethical  progress.  The 
study  of  the  history  of  religion  and  morality 
fails,   on   the   whole,   to   support   this   view. 

[1981 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 

Religion,  both  as  regards  its  relation  to 
morality  and  to  science,  must  be  regarded  as 
mainly  a  conservative  force. ^  As  such  it  has 
doubtless  often  retarded  progress,  checking 
freedom  of  thought  and  ethical  initiative. 
The  progress  of  the  emancipation  of  science 
and  morality  from  sacerdotal  control  is  indeed 
still  going  on,  though  the  victory  may  be  said 
to  be  fairly  won  for  secularism  in  every 
department.  Magic  has  yielded  to  medicine, 
astrology  to  astronomy,  alchemy  to  chemistry, 
authoritative  morality  to  ethical  autonomy, 
theology  to  philosophy.  It  is  worthy  of 
notice,  however,  that  the  whole  conception  of 
religion  as  a  conservative  force  rests  upon  a 
narrow  and  rather  arbitrary  definition  of 
religion.  What  ought  rather  to  be  said  is 
that  historical  theology  in  its  more  unpro- 
gressive  representatives  has  been  conservative 
and  opposed  to  progress.  Otherwise  the  whole 
distinction  between  progress  and  conservatism 
becomes  useless  as  applied  to  religion.  What 
if  we  said  (as  we  might  very  well  say)  that 

>  This  does  not  apply  to  the  earlier  history  of  civilization  when, 
as  is  well  known,  science  and  morality  were  largely  under  the  tutelage 
of  religion,  and  owed  their  progress  largely  to  their  connection  with 
ceremonial  and  hieratic  practices. 

[1991 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

many  men  have  made  progress  their  duty  and 
their  rehgion?  Certainly  many  important 
contributors  to  science  have  been  rehgious 
persons,  and  it  would  certainly  be  somewhat 
unconventional  to  call  such  moral  reformers 
as  Socrates  and  Jesus,  Luther  and  Zwingli, 
irreligious  or  unreligious! 

Besides,  the  statement  that  religion  is 
mainly  a  conservative  force  does  not  by  itself 
necessarily  disparage  religion.  Conservation 
of  the  past  is  itself  an  essential  factor  in 
progress.  Gravitation,  too,  is  in  a  sense 
a  conservative  force.  And  a  machine  runs 
more  evenly  with  the  incubus  of  a  heavy  fly- 
wheel than  it  would  without  it.  Society  needs 
both  the  innovator  and  the  conservator. 
Which  is  the  more  useful  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  say  in  the  abstract.  All  depends  on 
what  they  contribute  and  what  they  seek  to 
save.  For  respectable  mediocrity  they  are 
both  madmen:  thej^  often  become  social  out- 
casts. The  task  of  the  conservator  is  usually 
the  more  thankless,  inasmuch  as  society 
rarely  realizes  the  value  of  his  efforts  either 
during  his  life  or  after  his  demise.  The  inno- 
vator's life  is  at  least  more  interesting  and 
[200] 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 

exciting.  Aside  from  the  mental  stimulus  of 
fresh  discovery,  his  life  is  one  of  incessant 
conflict,  both  with  the  reactionary  and  the 
stationary  factions  of  society.  Frequently 
he  is  stoned  to  death,  and  posterity  sometimes 
raises  a  monument  to  his  memory.  The  con- 
servator usually  pines  away  in  isolation  and 
vain  regret,  a  slower  and  more  painful  death. 
Both  ought  to  be  allowed  to  live  in  peace  and 
honor.  But  no  man's  life  is  safe.  Even  the 
"conservative  progressive, "  who  seeks  to  keep 
his  mind  open  both  to  the  past  and  to  the 
future,  is  likely  to  be  injured  by  missiles  flying 
between  the  two  opposing  camps,  or  even  to 
have  both  enemies  join  in  a  temporary  alliance 
against  him. 

Reasons  '^^^    rcasou    why    religion    as    an 

fortius.  institution  does  not  lead  morality 
but  rather  follows  it  is  simple  enough  when  a 
fundamental  psychological  principle  is  firmly 
grasped.  As  was  pointed  out  in  another  con- 
nection, in  discussing  the  dogma  of  revelation, 
the  mind  cannot  grasp  anything  which  its 
experience  has  not  prepared  it  for.  A  man 
cannot  step  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  experi- 
ence any  more  than  he  can  leap  out  of  his 
[201] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

own  skin.  For  the  ignorant  Italian  fruit- 
vender  the  art  treasures  of  the  Holy  City  are 
non-existent,  and  the  armies  of  the  world  have 
trampled  its  streets  in  vain.  Trees  do  not 
grow  in  the  air.  Neither  are  our  conceptions 
of  the  deity  manufactured  out  of  whole  cloth, 
nor  do  they  come  out  of  the  blue.  They  are 
gotten  simply  from  the  interpretation  of  our 
experiences  as  these  come  to  us  in  our  contact 
with  nature  and  with  men.  Men's  concep- 
tions of  the  ethical  attributes  of  God  cannot 
rise  above  the  ethical  experiences  and  con- 
ceptions common  to  humanity.  We  cannot 
even  penetrate  directly  to  the  ethical  motives 
of  another  man;  all  we  can  ever  do  is  to  infer 
them  from  his  actions  as  we  observe  them, 
and  if  a  man  or  God  should  act  from  motives 
more  refined  than  any  which  have  ever  actu- 
ated us,  they  would  remain  as  completely 
unknown  to  us  as  colors  to  a  man  congenitally 
blind. 

The  moral  ideal  once  objectified  by  its  asso- 
ciation with  the  person  of  God  acquires  a 
certain  stability  which  tends  to  counteract 
the  fluctuations  to  which  lesser  and  more 
detached  ethical  norms  are  liable.  The  influ- 
[2021 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 

ence,  indeed,  of  the  belief  in  an  all-powerful 
and  all-seeing  God,  when  implicitly  held, 
exerts  a  reflex  influence  upon  conduct  the 
importance  of  which  cannot  easily  be  over- 
estimated. The  process  referred  to  has  been 
well  described  by  Fowler  and  Wilson :  "When 
a  sincere  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  being  with 
such  attributes  has  once  originated,  it  is  calcu- 
lated to  react  forcibly  upon  the  character  of  the 
worshipers.  In  part  itself  the  product  of  the 
moral  nature,  the  belief  reacts  on  the  feelings 
which  contributed  to  produce  it.  Morality 
lends  to  the  object  of  religious  regard  its  most 
endearing  attributes,  and  receives  in  turn  a 
sacred  and  venerable  character,  appealing 
especially  to  our  feelings  of  reverence  and  awe. 
Many  of  the  moral  virtues  have  been  thus 
transformed,  acquiring  thereby  a  different  and 
a  loftier  character.  "^ 

It  will  have  appeared,  however,  from  what 
has  been  said  so  far,  that  the  special  function 
of  religion  in  relation  to  morality  is  not  to 
create  new  ethical  ideas,  nor  to  prescribe 
ethical  norms  not  already  recognized  by  the 
common     ethical    feelings    of    mankind,    but 

1  The  Principles  of  Morals,  pp.  345-6. 
[2031 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

rather  to  add  its  sanction,  and  thus  to  re- 
enforce  such  ethical  ideals  and  norms  as 
already  exist.  As  is  often  said,  it  furnishes 
additional  motivation  to  right  conduct. 

Precisely   how   this   process   takes 

Religion  •-'  ^ 

renders         placc  is  a  uiattcr  which  remains  for 

action  ■•^ 

Ts'thZgh  ^  somewhat  fuller  explanation.  The 
of  muJer      main  points  may  be  briefly  indicated 

energies.  -^^  COUClusion. 

(1)  If  the  direction  of  a  man's  life  is  on  the 
whole  ethical,  it  cannot  but  receive  a  vast 
access  of  reenforcement  and  momentum  from 
the  idea  of  such  a  powerful  and  just  being 
as  the  religious  imagination  pictures  God  to 
be.  This  occurs,  in  the  first  place,  through  the 
release  of  energies  not  normally  brought  into 
requisition.  There  are  in  every  man  sub- 
merged and  pent-up  sources  of  energy  which 
are  rarely  tapped  and  drawn  upon,  the  higher 
degrees  of  possible  activity  being  for  some 
psychological  reason  pretty  completely  inhib- 
ited or  broken.  Professor  James  has  described 
this  with  surpassing  skill  in  his  widely  read 
essay,  The  Energies  of  Men.^     "As  a  rule," 

» Printed  in  somewhat  varying  forms  in  the  Philosophical  Review 
for  January  1907,  and  the  American  Magazine  for  October  1907; 
the  latter  article  is  also  reprinted  in  James'  posthumous  volume, 
Memories   and   Studies,   p.    229   £F. 

[  204  1 


RELIGION   AND    MORALITY 


he  says,  "men  habitually  use  only  a  small 
part  of  the  powers  which  they  actually  possess 
and  which  they  might  use  under  appropriate 
conditions.  Most  of  us  feel  as  if  a  sort  of 
cloud  weighed  upon  us,  keeping  us  below  our 
highest  notch  of  clearness  in  discernment, 
sureness  in  reasoning,  or  firmness  in  deciding. 
Compared  with  what  we  ought  to  be,  we  are 
only  half  awake.  Our  fires  are  damped,  our 
drafts  are  checked."  Every  one  can  recall 
unfortunate  individuals  in  life  or  in  literature 
whose  lives  have  become  a  tissue  of  disa- 
bilities, misgivings  and  regrets.  Excessive 
reflectiveness,  1  moral  obliquity,  ^  the  conscious- 
ness of  being  out  of  harmony  with  our  sur- 
roundings, accustomed  associations,  habits  and 
the  conventions  of  society  are  among  the  most 
common  causes  of  such  conative  impotence; 
but  the  causes  are  too  numerous  and  compli- 

» Cf.  Shakespeare: 

And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resohition 

Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought, 

And  enterprises  of  great  pitch  and  moment. 

With  this  regard  their  currents  turn  awry 

And  lose  the  name  of  action.     Hamlet,  Act  III,  sc.  I. 

2  Cf .  Browning,  Paracelsus : 

Choked  by  vile  lusts,  unnoticed  in  their  birth, 
But  let  grow  up  and  wind  around  a  will 
Till  action  was  destroyed. 

[205] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

cated  to  go  into  minutely  here.  Of  more 
interest  for  our  present  purpose  is  the  ques- 
tion of  the  way  existing  inhibitions  are  re- 
moved. In  general,  James  says,  "excitements, 
ideas  and  efforts  .  .  .  are  what  carry  us 
over  the  dam."  Of  the  more  acute  conditions 
which  precipitate  the  will,  rendering  possible 
free  and  vigorous  action,  James  names  love, 
anger,  crowd-contagion,  sometimes  despair, 
brandy,  opium,  a  spree,  a  vow  or  an  oath, 
a  fiat  of  will,  prayer,  and  the  like.  Among 
verbal  phrases  which  are  potent  in  setting  free 
pent-up  energies  are  fatherland,  the  flag,  the 
union,  the  holy  church,  the  Monroe  doctrine, 
truth,  science,  liberty,  Rome  or  death,  etc.  Of 
prayer  James  says:  "Relatively  few  medical 
men  and  scientific  men,  I  fancy,  can  pray. 
Few  can  carry  on  living  commerce  with  'God.' 
Yet  many  of  us  are  well  aware  of  how  much 
freer  and  abler  our  lives  would  be,  were  such 
important  forms  of  energizing  not  sealed  up 
by  the  critical  atmosphere  in  which  we  have 
been  reared."  And  of  conversion:  "Conver- 
sions .  .  .  form  another  way  in  which 
bound  energies  are  let  loose.  They  unify  us, 
and  put  a  stop  to  ancient  mental  interfer- 
[206] 


RELIGION   AND   MORALITY 

ences.     The  result  is  freedom,   and  often  a 

great  enlargement  of  power.  "^ 

„      .,  There  is  no  doubt  that  religious 

XI6IIC6  Its 

heroisms.  j^eas,  uot  uecessarily  ideas  of  future 
reward  or  punishment,  nor  even  ideas  of  God's 
approval  or  disapproval,  but  the  general  idea 
that  one  is  not  waging  the  battle  of  life  alone, 
but  in  allegiance  with  the  supreme  power  in 
the  universe,  is  an  operative  force  of  the  first 
order  in  the  indirect  sense  we  have  suggested. 
The  deeds  of  heroism  and  adventure  which 
religious  ideas  have  inspired  have  been  numer- 
ous and  striking,  and  have  largely  made  his- 
tory the  stirring  and  eventful  thing  that  it  is. 
The  energies  released  by  religion,  often  explo- 
sive and  spectacular  in  their  manifestations, 
have  displayed  themselves  in  a  thousand 
forms,  in  fasting,  flagellation,  persecution, 
various  acts  of  heroism,  such  as  the  renun- 
ciation of  worldly  goods  and  worldly  pleas- 
ures, and  in  those  massive  movements  which 
number  among  the  most  striking  and  mo- 
mentous events  in  history,  crusades,  religious 
reformations,  religious  wars,  etc.  The  influx 
of  energy  due  to  religion  has  steadied  men's 

lOp.  cit.,  pp.  261  and  258. 
[207] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

resolution  in  desert,  dungeon  and  cell,  and 
has  enabled  them  to  meet  unflinchingly  the 
terrors  of  the  cross  and  the  stake.  And  un- 
numbered acts  of  heroism  and  endurance  of  a 
private  kind,  too  homely  and  too  irrelevant 
to  the  interests  of  humanity  to  be  noticed 
by  history,  have  been  enacted  uncomplain- 
ingly under  the  inspiration  of  religion.  Often 
there  appears  such  a  powerful  sense  of  endur- 
ance and  sacrifice  as  actually  to  make  the 
devotee  long  for  suffering  and  privations: 
"Invested  with  an  invincible  courage,"  says 
Saint  John  of  the  Cross,  "filled  with  an  im- 
passioned desire  to  suffer  for  its  God,  the  soul 
then  is  seized  with  a  strange  torment — that 
of  not  being  allowed  to  suffer  enough.  "^  Saint 
Teresa's  account  rings  equally  true:  "Often 
infirm  and  wrought  upon  with  dreadful  pains 
before  the  ecstacy,  the  soul  emerges  from  it 
full  of  health  and  admirably  disposed  for 
action.  .  .  .  The  soul,  after  such  a  favor, 
is  animated  with  a  degree  of  courage  so  great 
that  if  at  that  moment  its  body  should  be 
torn  to  pieces  for  the  cause  of  God,  it  would 

iCEuvres,  II,  p.  320;   quoted  by  James,   Varieties  of  Religious 
Experience,  p.  414, 

[208] 


RELIGION   AND   MORALITY 

feel  nothing  but  the  liveHest  comfort.  Then 
it  is  that  promises  and  heroic  resolutions 
spring  up  in  profusion  in  us,"  etc.^  The  most 
common  entries  in  the  reported  accounts  of 
deep  religious  experiences  are  a  sense  of 
assurance,  of  harmony,  willingness  to  endure, 
intellectual  luminosity,  happiness  and  love, 
and  a  vast  access  of  energy,  rendering  its 
possessor  capable  of  great  heroisms  and  feats 
of  endurance.  These  accounts  are  not  only 
very  numerous  in  the  literature  of  confession 
and  devotion,  but  are  entirely  consonant  with 
our  modern  psychological  knowledge  of  the 
probable  effect  upon  action  of  such  ideas  as 
are  here  in  question. 

One  of  the  most  striking  and  most 

And  its  " 

*'*•  interesting   ways    in    which    religion 

has  contributed  to  civilization  is  through  the 
stimulus  and  vitality  which  it  has  imparted  to 
the  artistic  impulse.  One  cannot  but  be 
struck,  when  one  reviews  the  great  art  treas- 
ures of  the  world,  in  architecture,  painting, 
and  music,  particularly,  with  the  enormous 
part  which  religion  has  played  in  the  produc- 
tions of  these  noble  achievements.     It  is  not 

1  Loc.  cit. 
15  [  209  ] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

exaggerating  the  matter  in  the  least  to  say 
that  many  of  the  most  elaborate  and  consum- 
mate works  of  art  owe  their  origin  directly  to 
religious  ideas  and  emotions.  It  would  be  an 
endless  task  to  give  examples.  The  vast 
quantity  and  the  very  high  grade  of  art  due 
directly  to  the  Christian  religion  justifies  the 
statement  that  the  influence  of  Christ  is  not 
so  much  impressed  upon,  as  plowed  into, 
modern  life  and  civilization. 

There  are  two  or  three  further  character- 
istics of  religion  which  fit  it  admirably  for  the 
energy-releasing  function  of  which  we  have 
made  so  much,  and  which  might  be  briefly 
mentioned  in  conclusion. 
Mystery  Onc    Is    the    clemcnt    of    mystery 

and  moral 

power.  which  religion  contains.     It  is  a  true 

psychological  instinct  which  prompts  the 
church  to  surround  its  ritual  and  ceremony 
with  mystery.  Everyone  must  have  felt  the 
feeling  of  vagueness  and  vastness  which  is 
produced  by  the  dimly  lighted  edifice,  the 
murmured  prayer,  the  unknown  tongue  of  the 
ritual,  the  mysterious  ceremony.  The  emo- 
tional condition  thus  produced  is  a  valuable 
requisite  for  the  profounder  acts  of  communion 

[210] 


RELIGION  AND   MORALITY 

with  God,  and  for  the  influx  of  ethical  energy 
of  which  we  have  spoken.  Nor  is  the  produc- 
tion of  the  impression  of  mystery  illegitimate. 
The  universe  is  not  a  simple  problem  in  arith- 
metic: it  is  a  mystery,  and  a  mystery  which 
has  not  grown  less  obscure  with  the  passing 
of  time.  It  is  only  the  man  of  shallow  intel- 
ligence, who  has  never  spent  a  genuine 
thought  on  the  great  problems  by  which  we 
are  surrounded  on  every  hand,  who  can  regard 
the  world  with  complacency,  as  something 
which  the  intellect  of  man  has  penetrated  and 
understood. 

Thestimu-  A  furthcr  way  in  which  religion 

prestige.  rclcascs  unuscd  energies  is  by  teach- 
ing man  his  importance,  as  well  as  his  finite- 
ness  and  littleness.  The  work  of  salvation 
will  not  be  accomplished  without  man's 
active  cooperation.  He  is  a  co-worker  with 
God.  The  realization  of  this  adds  a  sense  of 
dignity  and  responsibility  to  man's  life  which 
cannot  but  stimulate  him  to  higher  and  more 
energetic  conduct.  Science  will  not  do  well  if  it 
teaches  man,  as  it  often  does,  that  the  future 
of  the  universe  and  of  human  history  is  a  fatal 
and  necessary  product  of  "the  click-clack  move- 

[211] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

merits  of  nature's  laws,"  rather  than,  partly,  at 
least,  the  result  of  man's  aspirations  and  acts. 
Man  may  be  merely  an  ephemeral  feature,  a 
bird  on  the  mountain,  or  a  weed  by  the  wall: 
but  if  he  learns  this  lesson  too  well,  it  will  be 
his  undoing. 
.j,.^  A   last  feature   of   religion   which 

The  sug-  t3 

foTcTof  lends  it  peculiar  ethical  force  is  the 
personality,  personal  clemeut  which  is  such  a 
striking  element  in  the  Hebrew,  Christian, 
and  other  higher  forms  of  religion.  Every  one 
knows  from  personal  experience  how  much  an 
ethical  ideal  gains  in  suggestive  force  if  it 
is  embodied  in  the  form  of  a  person  whom  one 
respects  and  admires.  A  personality,  in  order 
to  influence  conduct,  need  not  be  a  living 
personage,  nor  even  an  historical  one.  It  is 
well  known  what  a  leading  part  the  charac- 
ters of  fictitious  literature,  mere  products  of 
the  fancy,  play  in  the  lives  of  many  persons. 
The  "ideal  companion,"  as  James  has  well 
called  this  personage,  may  be  the  object  of 
religious  faith  and  the  religious  imagination. 
And  there  is  no  doubt  that  human  morality 
has  benefited  to  an  enormous  degree  through 
the  concretion  which  its  moral  ideals  have 
[212] 


RELIGION   AND   MORALITY 

received  in  the  person  or  persons  who  become 
the  objects  of  rehgious  belief  and  adoration. 
The  suggestive  force  of  the  idea  of  God  is  due 
not  only  to  the  sublime  character  which  is 
attributed  to  him;  this  suggestive  force  is 
greatly  augmented  by  the  influence  of  great 
masses  of  humanity  who  have  accorded  their 
loyalty  and  support  to  this  object  of  their 
religious  belief  and  worship.  The  cumula- 
tive force  of  tradition,  and  the  contagious 
effect  of  social  suggestion,  in  other  words, 
contribute  very  importantly  to  give  the  idea 
of  God  the  enormous  moral  and  emotional 
force  which  it  possesses.  Without  such  an 
unseen  personal  companion  and  guide,  moral- 
ity often  degenerates  into  a  calculating  self- 
ishness. With  this  personal  companionship 
and  support,  the  individual  goes  forth  to  con- 
quer himself  and  the  world,  and  to  bring  them 
under  the  dominion  of  the  ideal. 

Literature 

Bowne,  Principles  of  Ethics,  Chapter  VII. 

Caird,   Introduction   to   the   Philosophy   of  Religion, 

Chapter  IX. 
Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution. 
Hoffding,  Philosophy  of  Rehgion,  IV,  especially  pp. 

322-31. 

[2131 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

Janet,  Theory  of  Morals,  Chapter  XII. 

Jastrow,  A  Study  of  Religion. 

King,  The  Development  of  Religion,  Chapters  X-XI. 

Ladd,  Philosophy  of  Conduct,  Chapter  XXIV, 

Paulsen,  System  of  Ethics,  Book  II,  Chapter  VIII. 

Pfleiderer,  Philosophy  and   Development  of  Religion, 

Volume  I,  Chapter  II. 
Seth,  Ethical  Principles,  Part  III,  Chapters  II-III. 
Wundt,  Ethics,  Part  I,  Chapter  II. 


[214] 


VIII 
THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 


VIII 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

Summary  of        I  have  sought,  in  the  preceding, 
going.  to  outline,  with  a  few  main  strokes, 

the  saHent  features  of  a  world  view  upon  which 
religion,  if  it  is  to  continue  to  appeal  to  think- 
ing men,  must,  as  it  seems  to  me,  be  based. 
Reducing  these  features  to  their  lowest  pos- 
sible terms,  we  might  designate  them  as 
metaphysical  idealism  and  moral  optimism. 
Such  a  philosophy,  it  cannot  be  too  strongly 
urged,  cannot  undertake  to  contradict  the 
established  facts  of  science,  but  must  seek 
somehow  to  include  them.  It  is  not  the 
business  of  philosophy  to  add  to  the  stock 
of  knowledge  already  accumulated  by  the 
sciences.  All  it  can  ever  do  is  to  take  a  synop- 
tic view  of  them,  and  to  seek  to  interpret 
them,  to  trace  out  their  bearings  upon  the 
great  questions  of  the  world  and  of  life  which 
no  thinking  man  can  long  evade, — the  funda- 
mental constitution  of  the  universe,  the  place 
of  man  in  reality  as  a  whole,  the  existence  and 
nature  of  God,  the  survival  of  the  self  beyond 
death,  the  permanence  of  goodness,  and  the 
[217] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

like.  These  are  indeed  insistent  and  momen- 
tous questions,  and  unless  we  give  some  kind 
of  answer  to  them,  all  our  science  and  our  life 
will  remain  rather  unintelligent  and  useless, 
like  a  ship  without  a  steering  gear,  or  a  body 
without  a  brain. 

Such  an  interpretation  of  the  facts  and  cate- 
gories of  science  we  have  in  the  foregoing 
sought  to  make.  We  have  tried  to  keep  intact 
the  scientific  concepts  of  matter  and  mechan- 
ical causation,  but  we  have  sought  to  interpret 
these  as  illustrations  of  spirit,  as  relatively 
external  and  subordinate  features,  like  the 
notes  of  a  symphony,  or  the  words  of  a  drama, 
without  meaning  or  significance  until  they 
are  viewed  in  their  organic  connection  with 
the  plan  and  purpose  of  the  whole  to  which 
they  belong.^     Final  causes,  ends  or  purposes, 

>  While  I  am  writing  this,  a  child  of  six  is  interesting  herself  by 
copying  painstakingly  with  a  typewriter  from  a  book  lying  on  the 
table.  The  book  is  Mr.  Dickinson's  Religion,  A  Criticism  and  a 
Forecast.  The  sentence  which  the  child  has  just  finished  reads: 
"  I  have  urged  that  there  is  only  one  method  of  knowledge,  that  of 
experience  and  legitimate  inference  from  experience,"  a  statement 
unmeaning  to  the  child,  but  fraught  with  significance  for  the  philoso- 
pher. The  illustration  is  not  inapt,  I  think,  to  illustrate  the  differ- 
ence between  a  rigorously  descriptive  and  explanatory  science,  which 
contents  itself  with  a  transcription  of  reality,  and  philosophy  and 
Uterature,  which  seek  to  interpret  the  meaning  of  phenomena  for  life 
as  a  whole. 

[218] 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 


dominate  nature,  though  they  work  through 
efficient  causes,  through  means  and  instru- 
ments. The  uniformity  of  nature  is  an  un- 
doubted fact,  but  this  fact  does  not  mean 
fate,  but  freedom.  Without  constancies  in 
nature,  man's  knowledge  and  activity  would 
be  ahke  at  an  end,  and  all  his  purposes  and 
interests  would  become  at  once  incapable  of 
reahzation.  Evolution,  too,  is  a  phenomenon 
of  unquestioned  authenticity,  and  of  uni- 
versal scope,  but  evolution  is  not  mere 
change,  without  rhyme  or  reason,  issuing 
nowhere.  And  there  is  much  apparent  evil 
in  the  world,  many  opaque  hindrances  and 
obstructions  in  the  path  of  our  purposes;  but 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  life  would  be  insipid  and 
worthless  for  an  active  being  like  man  if  every 
wish  were  followed  by  immediate  fulfillment, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  confusion  and  social  dis- 
aster which  would  follow  upon  the  gratifica- 
tion of  every  desire,  no  matter  how  private  or 
selfish.  And  if  there  remain  disappointments 
which  are  both  cruel  and  unavoidable,  these 
can  be  explained,  even  if  not  completely  justi- 
fied, by  the  knowledge  that  man  is  only  a  part, 
not  the  whole;  that  he  performs  a  limited 
[2191 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

function  in  a  vast  scheme  of  things,  the  com- 
plete purpose  of  which,  even  if  he  does  his  best, 
he  can  only  partly  subserve.  And  in  so  far 
as  he  fails  in  fitting  himself  to  the  larger  plan, 
either  through  ignorance  or  defect  of  will,  he 
may  eventually  succumb  to  the  larger  purpose 
and  the  higher  good.  But  such  a  consumma- 
tion a  man,  if  he  is  sufficiently  courageous  and 
good,  cannot  ultimately  disapprove.  Still, 
it  must  be  confessed  that  the  belief  that  the 
deepest  plan  of  the  universe  provides  for  the 
eventual  and  decisive  triumph  of  good  is  and 
must  remain  a  matter  for  faith  and  hope, 
rather  than  a  conviction  based  upon  positive 
knowledge.  Thus  does  all  our  philosophy 
end  in  a  minor  chord,  leaving  us  with  a  vague 
sense  of  uneasiness,  mixed  with  a  prevailing 
mood  of  strength  and  hope.  Religion  based 
upon  philosophy  can  never  degenerate  into  a 
complacent  optimism.  It  will  be,  to  use  the 
words  of  a  gifted  writer,  "a  religion  not  of 
sunshine  or  darkness,  but  of  the  starry  twi- 
light, tremulous  with  hopes  and  fears,  wistful, 
adventurous,  passionate,  divining  a  horizon 
more  mysterious  and  vast  than  day  or  night 
can  suggest,  from  uncertainty  conjuring  pos- 
[220] 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 


sibility,  from  doubt  evoking  inspiration." 
With  such  a  rehgion  man  will  pass  through 
life  "as  a  man  may  float  down  an  unknown 
river  in  the  dusk,  risking  and  content  to  risk 
his  fortunes  and  his  life  on  the  chance  of  a 
discovery  more  wonderful  even  than  the  most 
audacious  of  his  dreams."^ 

Still,  it  is  a  fact  of  the  utmost  importance 
for  religion  that  man  does  not  merely  drift  or 
float,  but  that  the  betterment  of  his  condition 
is  largely  in  his  own  hands,  that  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  ethical  process  for  the  cosmical  pro- 
cess, as  Huxley  expresses  it,  is  possible  through 
his  own  active  endeavors.  Man's  environ- 
ment is  not  opaque  and  unyielding,  like  a  stone 
wall,  it  is  something  plastic  to  man's  moral 
ideals  and  aspirations.  The  Power  in  the 
universe  overruling  events  for  good,  of  which 
we  spoke  in  our  definition  of  religion,  is  not 
some  external  force,  acting  upon  things  from 
without:  it  is  immanent  in  the  very  heart  of 
things.  It  manifests  itself,  I  should  say,  in 
two  great  phenomena  upon  which  theism  must 
ultimately  rest:  the  uniformity  of  nature,  in 
virtue  of  which  we  can  understand  it  and  act 

I  Dickinson,  op.  cit.,  p.  56. 
[221] 


TTIK    PR  OUT.  KM    OF    R  K  T,  T  T.  1  ()  \ 


successfully  upon  it,  ami  the  free  will  of  man, 
which  can  initiate  action  in  conformity  with 
ideals.  Our  acts,  as  James  forcibly  says 
somewhere,  are  turning  places,  growing 
places,  as  it  were,  of  the  w«)rl(l,  where  we  catch 
reality  in  the  making.  To  a  universe  so  con- 
stituted man  cannot  reascmahly  object. 

Religion   h:is  had   a   long  history,   and   has 
undergone  uKiiiy  changes  in  outward  form  and 
in    doctrine,    all    of    which    it    has    survived. 
Men  have  long  abandoned  the  absurd  notion 
of  the  eighteenth  century  thai  it  is  the  inven-  T 
tion  of  priests,   and  have  learned   that    it   isj 
rooted   in    the   deepest   instincts   and   experi- 
ences of  man's  life.     That  religion  will  undergoP 
further  developments  is  also  certain,  but    itsi 
inner  spirit  will  remain  the  same,  and  its  cen  1 
tral  conviction,  the  conviction  that  the  worhr 
is  good,  will  only  grow  in  strength  as  men  com  I 
to    understand    their    experience   more   con  I 
pletely.     From   present  indications,  the  relL 
gion  of  the  future   will    show    the    followiuj 
characteristics,  all  of  which  seem  to  be  mo 
or    less    permanent    achievements    of    nianl. 
intellectual  and  spiritual  history. 

[222] 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 


he 


religion  (1)  Tlic  reli*i:i()ii  of  the  future  will 

be  theistic  and  personalistic,  rather 

be 

theistic.  than  i)antheistic,  positivistic  or 
merely  humanitarian.  In  all  these  forms  God 
as  a  personal  spirit  is  either  ruled  out,  or  else 
sublimated  to  such  a  point  as  to  amount  to 
little  more  than  a  physical  force,  a  j)rinciple 
of  unity,  the  form  of  moral  order,  or  a  similar 
phenomenon.  But  such  an  entity,  however 
useful  it  may  i)rovc  to  express  certain  impor- 
tant phases  of  the  universe,  will  perhaps  not 
express  it  completely  enou<;h  to  satisfy  the 
intellectual  need  of  many  thoughtful  men, 
and  will  function  only  feebly  in  its  influence 
upon  conduct.  **  He  reckons  ill,"  said  Pindar, 
sj)eaking  from  I  he  point  of  view  of  practice, 
"who  leaves  (iod  out";  Imt  it  is  doubtful 
whether  philosophy,  as  a  purely  intellectual 
discipline,  will  be  able  entirely  to  dispense 
with  the  theistic  hypothesis.  To  say  this  is 
not  to  say  that  religion  will  be  anthropomor- 
])hic,  in  a  crude  and  bald  sense  of  that  term. 
It  will,  of  course,  not  think  of  (iod  "as  an 
enlarged  and  glorified  man,  who  walks  in  the 
garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day,  or  as  a  judge 
deciding   between   human   litigants,   or   as   a 

1223] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

king,  Pharaoh  or  emperor,  ruhng  arbitrarily 
his  subjects. "1  Still,  if  we  are  to  have  any 
notion  of  God  at  all,  we  must  interpret  him  in 
terms  of  our  own  experience,  and  we  shall 
naturally  attribute  to  Him  those  fundamental 
traits  which  make  up  our  own  spiritual  life, 
and  in  terms  of  which,  as  we  held  in  an  earlier 
section,  all  reality  must  ultimately  be  inter- 
preted: intelligence  and  will.  Thus  all  our 
philosophy  and  religion  will  continue  to  show 
certain  anthropomorphic  features.  Anthro- 
pomorphism or  complete  agnosticism  seem  to 
be  the  inevitable  alternatives  which  we  eventu- 
ally have  to  face.  That  God's  thought  w^ill 
not  be  as  our  thought,  and  that  His  purpose 
will  outrun  and  overlap  all  human  purposes, 
goes  without  saying.  But  if  we  are  to  trace  his 
thought  at  all,  as  this  is  revealed  in  nature, 
and  if  we  are  to  fathom  his  will,  we  can  do  so 
only  by  helping  ourselves  with  such  categories 
and  conceptions  as  are  furnished  us  in  our 
human  experience.  ^ 

The  assertion  of  the  existence  of  God  as  a 
principle  of  intelligence   and   will   is   so   far- 

1  C.  W.  Eliot,  The  Religion  of  the  Future,  p.  17. 

2  Cf .  the  similar  view  of  Paulsen  in  his  Introduction  to  Philosophy. 

[224  1 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

reaching  in  its  consequences  that  it  cannot 
but  provoke  mental  objections,  especially  on 
the  part  of  those  who  have  thought  them- 
selves pretty  thoroughly  weaned  from  the 
anthropomorphism  of  traditional  theology. 
The  objection  will  inevitably  be  raised  that 
we  have  no  evidence  for  the  existence  of  such 
a  world  soul  as  has  been  here  proposed.  It 
is  plain  that  all  depends  upon  what  is  meant  by 
the  terms  "soul"  and  "evidence."  We  have 
of  course  no  visible  or  direct  evidence  of  any 
kind  of  such  a  universal  spirit  or  soul.  But 
neither  do  we  have  any  visible  or  direct  evi- 
dence of  anybody's  soul.  The  only  way  I 
can  be  assured  of  the  existence  of  my  friend's 
soul  is  through  the  rationality  and  consistency 
of  his  words  and  his  actions.  Beyond  these 
I  can  never  penetrate.  We  have  no  assurance 
that  Shakespeare  possessed  a  soul  except  the 
high  degree  of  rationality  evidenced  by  his 
literary  productions.  We  have  no  evidence 
for  the  intelligent  origin  of  a  complicated 
mechanism  except  the  delicate  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends,  of  the  detailed  parts  to  the 
plan  and  function  of  the  whole.  It  is  the 
same  kind  of  evidence,  precisely,  upon  which 
16  r  225  1 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

we  must  depend  for  the  belief  in  God  as  a 
principle  of  intelligence  and  rational  will. 
The  only  argument  which  we  can  adduce,  and 
the  only  argument  we  need,  for  a  Universal 
Reason  is  the  universal  rationality  of  things, 
just  as  the  only  reason  we  can  adduce  for  the 
existence  of  a  Universal  Goodness  is  the  preva- 
lence of  goodness  in  the  world,  the  fundamen- 
tal righteousness  of  things.  This  is  so  obvious, 
I  take  it,  as  to  require  no  further  argument, 
and  I  am  content  to  rest  the  case  here. 
And  human-  (^)  The  rcligiou  of  the  future  will 
'®*'*^*  continue   to   be   anthropocentric   or 

humanistic,  in  the  sense  that  man  will  con- 
tinue to  be  the  center  of  its  interest.  To 
paraphrase  Pindar's  line,  he  reckons  ill,  too, 
who  leaves  man  out.  Man  will  not  be 
regarded  as  the  only  object  of  nature,  but  he 
must  be  regarded  as  an  object,  since  he  is 
here.  And  if  we  are  guided  by  what  evolution 
has  to  teach  about  the  relative  grade  of 
nature's  forms,  as  indicated  by  their  structure 
and  office,  rather  than  by  considerations  of  a 
false  modesty  so  often  affected  by  pseudo- 
science,  we  may  even  assert  man  to  be  the 
highest  object  so  far  attained  in  the  part  of 
[226] 


THE   RELIGION   OF   THE   FUTURE 

the  world  which  we  know.  And  it  would 
hardly  be  good  scientific  form  to  speculate 
about  higher  grades  of  being  and  more  perfect 
creations  in  other  parts  of  the  universe,  con- 
cerning which  we  have  no  knowledge  what- 
soever. Any  philosophy,  in  fact,  which  leaves 
man  out,  or  proves  man's  life  and  mind  to  be 
ephemeral  and  insignificant  features  of  the 
world,  is  so  patently  self-contradictory  that 
it  cannot  hope  to  gain  men's  serious  hearing 
or  assent.  No  being  like  man  who  can  com- 
pass both  himself  and  the  world,  and  who  can 
assign  his  own  place  in  the  world,  can  be  insig- 
nificant. He  can  at  best  only  be  temporarily 
deceived,  or  else  acquire  the  bad  habit  of 
make-believe  and  stage  play.  This  habit  he 
undoubtedly  possesses,  but  it  is  so  obvious 
a  weakness  of  mental  character  that  the 
common  sense  of  mankind  is  not  seriously 
deceived  by  it. 
It  wiu  be  (3)  Future  religion  will  be  free  and 

progres- 
sive, progressive.     It  will  never  again  rest 

upon  absolute  authority,  whether  of  a  book  or 

an  ecclesiastical  system.     Religious  truth  will 

never  be  closed,  so  that  it  will  not  be  capable 

of  extension  or  of  revision;  it  will  be  progressive 

[  227  ] 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

and  flexible,  adjusting  itself  constantly  to  new 
discoveries  and  insights,  no  matter  from  what 
direction  they  may  come.  And  religion  will 
not  receive  the  results  of  genuine  investigation 
grudgingly,  but  will  eagerly  welcome  new 
truth,  confident  that  its  interests  can  never  be 
served  by  falsification  or  by  indirection,  but 
that  truth  must  be  good,  no  matter  what  the 
issues  are  to  which  it  seems  to  lead.  The 
brilliant  saying  of  Emerson,  that  "the  immor- 
ality of  the  conclusion  spares  us  the  trouble  of 
examining  the  argument,"^  is  perhaps  no  more 
than  a  tacit  assumption  which  underlies  both 
science  and  common  sense,  and  without  which 
all  our  investigations  would  cease. 

(4)     Religion     will     continue    to 

It  will  express  •         i  p        i  i        • 

itself  through   cxprcss    itsclf    through    institutions, 

institutions.  •,   .        .  .  . 

achieving  its  aims  through  organ- 
ized as  well  as  through  private  effort.  But 
the  religious  organization  will  never  again  be 
regarded  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  it  will  never 
again  dominate  and  suppress  the  individuals 
who  compose  it,  for  whom  it  exists,  and  from 

»  Hitherto,  in  so  far  as  the  writer  knows,  unpublished.  It  was  com- 
municated from  personal  recollections  of  Emerson  by  Mr.  F.  B. 
Sanborn,  of  Concord. 

[2281 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 

whom  alone  it  derives  its  vitality  and  strength. 
There  will  be  no  hereditary  priesthood,  but 
the  deliverance  of  every  man  will  carry  what 
force  it  will  in  virtue  of  its  intrinsic  truth  and 
spiritual  power.  Might  will  still  be  right, 
but  the  might  will  not  be  physical,  but  rational 
and  spiritual. 

itwiube  (^)  The  religion  of  the  future  will 

ethical.  j^g  ethical  and  redemptive,  rather 
than  merely  passive  and  contemplative.  And 
while  humanitarian  effort  and  relief  will  never 
constitute  the  whole  of  religion,  the  ethical 
and  practical  constituent  will  continue  to  be, 
as  it  always  has  been,  a  central  element  of  the 
religious  life.  Without  its  ministry  to  the 
needy  and  the  suffering,  without  any  interest 
in  the  raising  of  man's  material  and  social 
condition,  without  a  strong  message  of  right- 
eousness and  noble  living,  rehgion  can  never 
attain  to  its  greatest  strength  and  usefulness 
as  a  social  institution. 

(6)  But,  lastly,  rehgion  will  never 

The  romance  ^    '  '  "^  '  " 

of  religion,  becomc  merely  an  intellectual  point 
of  view,  or  an  ethical  or  social  propaganda,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  man  is  not  a  mere 
combination  of  intellect   and   will.     Religion 

[229] 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

grows  out  of  man's  total  need,  and  it  will  never 
be  complete  until  it  serves  man's  needs  com- 
pletely. Man  is  and  will  be  a  sentimental 
being,  passionate,  hopeful,  creative,  unsatis- 
fied with  the  present,  and  ever  constructing 
in  his  dreams  images  of  the  unattained.  It  is 
this  power  of  seeing  things  "which  never  were 
on  land  or  sea"  which  raises  him,  more  than 
does  any  other  intellectual  gift,  above  his 
fellow  creatures.  It  is  the  imaginative  exuber- 
ance of  religion,  its  noble  redundancy,  the  very 
thing  which  makes  it  a  stumbling  block  to 
sober  science,  that  accounts  for  its  perennial 
appeal  to  the  best  minds.  I  take  this  poetic 
element  in  religion  to  be,  not  an  element  of 
weakness,  but  rather  of  strength  and  vitality. 
Man's  playful  activities  are  always  a  symptom 
of  abounding  life.  Art  and  poetry  and  religion 
do  not  flourish  where  man's  powers  are 
consumed  in  the  hard  struggle  for  existence. 
In  virtue  of  its  imaginative  element,  its 
romance,  religion  becomes  an  ornament  of 
life,  and  a  prophesy.  If  science  reveals  to 
man  the  actual,  poetry  and  religion  show  him 
the  ideal.  If  science  has  disillusioned  man, 
it  is  the  function  of  poetry  and  religion  to 

[2301 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  FUTURE 


re-illusion  him,  to  hearten  him  by  the  revela- 
tion of  better  things  than  any  yet  attained. 
It  is  the  sphere  of  the  imagination  which  is  the 
breeding  ground  of  all  our  ideals,  intellectual, 
ethical  and  aesthetic.  If  our  acts  are  truly 
turning  places,  where  we  catch  reality  in  the 
making,  as  James  has  so  finely  said,  then  we 
must  remember  that  the  incipient  beginnings 
of  all  human  acts,  in  so  far  as  they  are  spon- 
taneous and  original,  occur  in  the  realm  of  the 
imagination.  This,  then,  is  the  real  workshop 
of  being,  where  man  can  himself  repeat  and 
continue  the  act  of  creation,  the  highest 
function  which  man  has  attributed  to  the 
Absolute. 

Will  this  sense  of  the  eternal  and  the  ideal 
ever  be  obliterated  in  man  through  his 
preoccupation  with  science  and  the  practical, 
humdrum  tasks  of  life.?  It  is  certain  that  it 
will  not.  Man  will  always  be  a  poet  and  a 
prophet  as  well  as  a  thinker.  It  is  only  as  a 
poet,  in  fact,  as  Schiller  somewhere  suggests, 
that  man  is  truly  complete.  The  poetic  and 
prophetic  strain  in  him,  because  the  deepest 
and  most  real  element  of  his  personality, 
nature  will  never  permit  to  be  lost. 

[2311 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   RELIGION 

"Just  when  we  are  safest,  there's  a  sunset-touch, 
A  fancy  from  a  flower-bell,  some  one's  death, 
A  chorus-endmg  from  Euripides, — 
And  that's  enough  for  fifty  hopes  and  fears 
As  old  and  new  as  nature's  self. 
To  rap  and  knock  and  enter  in  our  soul. 
Take  hands  and  dance  there,  a  fantastic  ring, 
Round  the  ancient  idol,  on  his  base  again, — 
The  grand  Perhaps ! "  ^ 

Literature 

Dickinson,  Religion,  a  Criticism  and  a  Forecast. 
Eliot,  The  Religion  of  the  Future. 
Sturt,  The  Idea  of  a  Free  Church. 

» Browning,  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology. 


232] 


INDICES 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Activity,  as  characteristic  of 
mind,  31,  68-69,  79-81,  88-90; 
idea  of,  transferred  to  external 
nature,  90-91. 

Acts,  motivation  of,  194-98,  204; 
as  creative  of  reality,  222,  231. 

Adaptation  and  happiness,  116. 

Anger,  as  stimulus  to  action,  206. 

Anthropomorphism,  82-3,  223- 
26. 

Arbitration,  151. 

Art,  fine,  133,  189,  209-10. 

Association,  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian, 20,  n.  1. 

Bad,  distinction  between  good 
and,  116-17. 

Bible,  8,  12-14,  36,  45-48,  227. 
See  also  Revelation. 

Biology,  relation  of,  to  phil- 
osophy, 11. 

Brain,  function  of,  161-66. 

Brotherhood  movement,  26,  n.  1. 

Causation,  10,  83-96.     See  also 

Law,  Mechanism. 
Certitude,  171-72. 
Charity,  14. 
Church,  8,  14. 

Clergy,  influence  of,  15-16. 
Code,  moral,  8. 
Coherence,  as  criterion  of  truth, 

38. 
Conservator,  200-201. 
Consistency,  38. 
Conventions,  205. 
Conversion,  206-7. 
Creation,    10,    50-51,    100-101, 

222,  231. 
Crime,  as  disease  of  social  tissue, 

154-55. 
Criminal,  154-55. 
Criticism,  higher,  12. 
Crowd-contagion,  206. 

Death,  126-27, 159-84,  See  also 
Immortality. 


Desires,  distinction  between 
lower  and  higher,  116-17;  as 
argument  for  immortality,  167; 
as  basis  of  ethical  distinctions, 
116. 

Despair,  as  stimulus  to  action, 
206. 

Disarmament,  151. 

Divorce,  17. 

Education,  14;  moral  and  reli- 
gious, 14-15,  16,  n.  1,  32-33. 

Effort,  206. 

End.  See  Mechanism,  Purpose, 
Teleology. 

Energies,  unused,  204-13. 

Energy,  conservation  of  matter 
and,  60,  174. 

Environment,  not  unyielding, 
221. 

Ethics,  religion  and,  33-35,  51-2; 
evolutionary,  152;  utilitarian, 
152. 

Eugenics,  131-2. 

Evil,  problem  of,  50-51,  219-22. 

Evolution,  50,  71,  99-102,  105-8, 
219,  226. 

Experience,  as  source  of  philo- 
sophy and  theology,  37,  201-2; 
pm-posive  features  of,  68-9, 
79,  81;  as  relational,  70; 
objects  "outside  of,"  71-5,  79; 
distinction  between  finite  and 
absolute,  72-5;   absolute,  113. 

Family,  8. 

Finitude,  death  as  due  to,  175. 
Fittest,  survival  of,  10,  100,  152- 
3. 

God,  as  absolute  experience> 
72-5,  113;  as  contemplative. 
75;  as  active,  75,  82;  knowl- 
edge of,  115;  as  intelligence 
and  will,  223-6;  suggestive 
force  of  idea  of,  213. 


[235 


INDICES 


Goodness  of  the  world,  113-56, 
172-4,  221-2,  226. 

Habit,  196,  205. 

Happiness,  activity  and,  136-9; 
knowledge  and,  141-6;  love 
and,  146-8;  as  depending  on 
adaptation  to  environment, 
116;  common  sources  of, 
139-41. 

Heaven  and  hell,  168-9. 

Heredity.  67-8,  127-8;  social, 
132-4. 

Home,  influence  of,  16-17. 

Idealism,  VII,  VIII,  12,  n.  1,  49, 
57-76,  217. 

Imitation,  social,  41,  42-3,  191, 
213. 

Immortality,  159-84;  mere  as- 
surance of,  unimportant,  160- 
61;  arguments  against,  161- 
66;  proofs  for,  166-71; 
ignorance  concerning,  not  an 
evil,  171-2;  bearing  of,  on  the 
value  of  life,  172-4;  condi- 
tional, 183-4. 

Impulses,  196. 

Individual,  228-9. 

Individualism,  present-day,  8-9. 

Innovator,  200-201. 

Instincts,  196. 

Intuition,  36-42. 

Inventions,  133. 

Investigation,  free,  20. 

Jesus,  52,  200. 
Justice,  168-9,  181. 

Knowledge,  biological  function 
of,  141-2;  relation  to  happi- 
ness, 142-3;  and  desire,  144-6; 
of  God,  115,  226. 

Law,  natural,  9,  10,  83-108;  and 
purpose,  95-8. 

Legislation,  191. 

Leisure,  as  source  of  happiness, 
136-7. 

Life,  place  of,  in  universe,  10-11; 
intensity  of  modern,  17;  effects 
of,  not  lost,  174-6;  intrinsic 
value  of,  176-7;  as  adjust- 
ment to  environment,  182. 


Liquor  traflSc,  9. 

Literature,  212. 

Love,  as  a  source  of  happiness, 

146-8;   as  stimulus  to  action, 

206. 
Luther,  200. 

Machine,  92-3. 

Man,  place  of,  in  the  universe, 
10-11,  30,  226-7.  See  also 
Mind. 

Marriage,  9. 

Materialism,  9-12,  49,  57-76; 
in  psychology,  59-60;  of 
science,  60-61.  See  also 
Mechanism. 

Matter,  nature  of,  62-8;  rela- 
tion to  mind,  62-3,  179;  as 
object  of  inference,  66;  not 
an  independent  reality,  70-71, 
79;  related  to  human  interests 
and  purposes,  81-2. 

Mechanism,  9-12,  49-50,  79-109. 
See  also  Materialism. 

Memory,  relation  to  futm-e  life, 
162-3. 

Metaphysics,  relation  to  reli- 
gion, 13-14. 

Mind,  unity  of,  30-33,  79-81, 
189;  activity  of,  31,  68-9,  80- 
81,  104;  as  matter,  57-9;  as 
the  effect  of  matter,  59-61; 
place  of,  in  the  universe,  10-11, 
30,  60-61;  survival  of,  179- 
84;  and  body,  161-66. 

Miracle,  46,  98-9. 

Misery,  causes  of,  134-5. 

Morality,  religion  and,  187-214; 
sanctions  of,  195-8;  history  of, 
149-51. 

Mystery,  effect  of,  on  moral 
energy,  210-211. 

Naturalism.     See   Materialism 
and  Mechanism. 

Nature,  uniformity  of,  96,  n.  1, 
219,  221;  and  the  supernat- 
ural, 8,  98-9. 

Obliquity,  moral,  205. 
Observation  as  source  of  truth, 

38. 
Opium,  206. 


[236] 


INDICES 


Optimism,  113-156,  217. 
Organization,  as  ideal  of  knowl- 
edge, 38. 

Pain,  physical,  135. 

Personality,  suggestive  force  of, 
212-13. 

Pessimism,  50-51,   113-56,   167. 

Philanthropy,  14. 

Philosophy,  relation  to  religion, 
13-14,  20-21,   33-6,  48-51. 

Physics,  relation  of,  to  philo- 
sophy, 11. 

Pleasure  and  pain,  qualities  of, 
120. 

Poverty,  135. 

Power,  soiu-ce  of  the  idea  of, 
87-91,  105;  existence  and 
meaning  of,  in  the  universe, 
113-14. 

Pragmatism,  82. 

Prayer,  206,  210. 

Prestige,  religion  as  conferring  a 
sense  of,  211-12. 

Priests,  religion  as  the  invention 
of,  222. 

Progress,  51,  119,  124;  theologi- 
cal, 4;  religion  and,  18-19; 
moral,  148-56,  187. 

Psychology,  faculty,  31,  189; 
of  religion,  33-5;  Hobbes' 
definition  of,  58. 

Punishment,  eternal,  168-9,  183. 

Purpose,  49-50,  86,  218-19;  as 
an  aspect  of  consciousness, 
68-9,  79-81,  104.  See  also 
Teleology  and  Mechanism. 

Qualities,  primary  and  second- 
ary, 64-6. 

Realism,  VII. 

Reflection,  as  a  source  of  truth, 
38. 

Reflectiveness,  excessive,  205. 

Relations,  66-8;  as  "the  work  of 
the  mind,"  67;  artificial  view 
of,  by  Kant,  70. 

Religion,  present  position  of, 
3-21;  various  expressions  of, 
4;  and  science,  4,  33,  35;  and 
philosophy,  13,  20-21,  33-6, 
48-52;    definitions  of,  25-33; 


and  theology,  25,  29,  33-5; 
and  morality,  21,  26-29,  51-2, 
187-214,  229;  and  ethics, 
33-5;  as  implying  ethical 
attitudes,  193-8;  as  a  conserva- 
tive influence,  198-204;  re- 
leases unused  energies,  204-13; 
of  the  future,  217-232;  theistic, 
223-6;  humanistic,  226;  pro- 
gressive, 227-8;  institutional, 
228;  as  a  form  of  sentiment, 
25,  27-9,  229-32. 

Revelation,  as  progressive,  47-8; 
of  God  through  nature  and 
life,  47,  115.     See  also  Bible. 

Rites,  190. 

Ritual,  210. 

Sabbath,  9. 

Sanitation,  151. 

Science,  specialization  of,  5-9; 
and  theology,  35;  and  mate- 
rialism, 57,  60-61;  emancipa- 
tion of,  from  theology,  199. 

Selection,  natural,  10, 100;  sexual, 
127-32. 

Serfdom,  151. 

Slavery,  151. 

Spiritualism,  166. 

Spree,  206. 

Struggle,  will  to,  102-3. 

Suffrage,  151. 

Supernatural,  8,  98-9. 

Taboo,  190. 

Teleology,  9-12,  49-50,  79-109, 
218-19.  See  also  Mechanism, 
Law,  Purpose. 

Theology,  4,  12,  29,  35-6. 

Tradition,  40,  41. 

Truth,  source  of,  35-48;  as  a 
growth,  38;  vivacity  as  a  test 
of,  39;  as  a  social  product,  41; 
how  conveyed,  44;  as  objec- 
tive, 45. 

Universe,  and  God,  73;  unity  of, 

74-5. 
Unrest,  religious,  3-5;  causes  of, 

5-17. 
Utility,  as  criterion  of  goodness, 

153,  188. 


[237 


INDICES 

Value,  VIII,  34;   of  life,  113-56;  Welfare,    pleasure    feeling    and, 

of  the  transient,  176-7;  inde-  124-5. 

pendence  of,  on  consciousness.  Will,   the  world  as,   83-108;  to 

180.  struggle,    102-3;    freedom   of. 

Variation,  100.  97-8;   as  source  of  the  idea  of 

Voluntarism,  82.  power,  87-91,  105. 

^'o*'  -06.  Zwingli,  200. 

Wealth,  137-8. 


i 


238] 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 


Adler,  F.,  9,  n.  2. 
Alexander,  S.,  153,  n.  1. 
Angell,  81,  n.  1. 
Aristotle,  6,  75. 
Arnold,  M.,  26,  29,  n.  1. 
Audubon,  128-9. 

Bain,  31. 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  132. 

Bechstein,  128. 

Bentham,  J.,  196. 

Bergson,  12,  n.  1. 

Berkeley,  VIII,  62.  68-9,  72,  80. 

Bowne.  B.  P.,  99,  n.  1,  101,  n.  1, 

124. 
Brinton,  190.  n.  1. 
Browning.  50,  107.  114,  138-39, 

147.  172.  174,  178.  181.  205, 

n.  2.  232. 
Burke.  18. 
Butler,  N.  M.,  9,  n.  2. 

Caird,  E.,  12,  n.  1,  66,  n.  2. 
Caird,  J.,  12,  n.  1. 
Calkins.  M.  W..  62.  n.  1.  66. 
Carlyle,  118,  145,  172-3. 
Coe,  15.  n.  1. 

Darwin,  39.  128,  n.  1,  129. 
Davenport.  132,  n.  1. 
Dewev  and  Tufts,  153.  n.  1. 
Dickinson,  G.  L..  169,  218,  n.  1. 
Draper,  192,  n.  1. 

Eden.  135,  n.  1. 
Eliot.  C.  W.,  223-4. 
Emerson,  48,  198,  228. 
Erdmann,  58,  n.  1. 
Eucken,  12,  n.  1. 

Falckenberg,  58,  n.  1,  62,  n.  1. 
Field,  132,  n.  1. 
Forsyth,  Principal,  35. 
Fowler  and  Wilson,  190,  n.  1,  203. 
Eraser,  A.  C.  62.  n.  1. 

Galloway.  30.  n.  1,  31. 
Galton,  F.,  132,  n.  1. 
Goethe,  136,  176. 


Gross,  70,  n.  1. 

Herodotus.  137-8. 
Hobbes,  58. 

Hoffding,  58,  n.  1,  62,  n.  1. 
Humboldt,  W.  von,  188. 
Hume,  27,  69,  86-7. 
Huxley,  221. 

James,  W.,  12,  n.  1,  31,  81,  n.  1, 
96,  145-6.  163,  164.  167.  n.  1, 
204,  206,  208,  n.  1,  212,  222. 

Jastrow,  J.,  167,  n.  1. 

Jastrow,  M.,  30.  n.  1.  192,  n.  1. 

Judd.  81.  n.  1. 

Kant.  VIII.  61.  66-8,  69-70. 
Kellicott,  132,  n.  1,  168. 
Kulpe,  81,  n.  1. 

Landor,  178. 
Lange,  58,  n.  1. 
Lecky,  139. 
Leibniz,  6,  103,  n.  1. 
Lodge,  Sir  O.,  143. 

Mackenzie,  J.  S.,  28,  153,  n.  1. 
Marshall,  R.,  133,  n.  1. 
Martineau,  90-91. 
McDougall,  131,  n.  1. 
McTaggart,  J.  E.,  12,  n.  1,  13. 

25,  30,  n.  1.  117,  n.  1,  123, 

165,  n.  1. 
Mezes,  153,  n.  1. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  27,  134,  147. 
Morgan,  C.  L.,  129,  n.  1. 
Morris,  66,  n.  2. 
Muirhead,  29,  n.  1,  153,  n.  1. 
Mlinsterberg,  9,  n.  1. 
Myers,  F.  W.,  114,  n.  1. 

Pater,  W.,  70-1. 

Paulsen,  F.,  12,  n.  1,  58-9,  66, 
n.  2,  103,  120,  n.  1,  138,  n.  1, 
153,  n.  1,  174,  224,  n.  2. 

Pearson,  K.,  132,  n.  1. 

Perry,  R.  B.,  30. 

Rashdall,  H.,  73. 

Royce,  J.,  12,  n.  1,  81,  n.  1. 


[239] 


INDICES 


Sabatier,  3. 
Salleeby,  132,  n.  1. 
Sanborn,  228,  n.  1. 
Schiller,  Friedrich,  197,  231. 
Schiller,  F.  C.  S.,  166. 
Schopenhauer,  104,  n.  1. 
Schurman,  J.  G.,  43-4,  66,  n.  2. 
Seth,  J.,  153,  n.  1. 
Shakespeare,  89,  121,  n.  1,  205, 

n.  1. 
Sidgwick,  H.,  153,  n.  1. 
Simmel,  153,  n.  1. 
Sisson,  14. 
Sorley,  153,  n.  1. 
Spencer,  153,  n.  1. 
Spinoza,  28. 
Stephen,  L.,  153,  n.  1. 
Stout,  81,  81,  n.  1,  171. 
SuUy,  81,  n.  1. 


Taylor,  A.  E.,  12,  n.  1,  102,  n.  1' 

183-4. 
Tennyson,  73,   108,   114,   181. 
Titchener,  81,  n.  1. 
Tylor,  190,  n.  1. 

IJberweg,  58,  n.  1. 

Wallace,  W.,  66,  n.  2. 
Ward,  J.,  12,  n.  1,  136,  n.  1. 
Watson,  J.,  66,  n.  2. 
Weber,  58,  n.  1.  103.  n.  1. 
Westermarck,  150,  n.  1. 
Whetham,  132,  n.  1. 
Whetham,  Mrs.,  132,  n.  1. 
White,  A.  D.,  192,  n.  1. 
Wilm,  15,  n.  1,  16,  n.  1,  103,  n.  1, 

182,  n.  1. 
Windelband,  165,  n.  1. 
Wright  C.  D.,  135,  n.  1. 
Wundt,  81,  81,  n.  1. 


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